


Take It From the Top

by CandlemasBells



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Basically a monologue but I'm pretending it's a dialogue, But no one is actually suicidal, Comfort Later, Flashbacks, Graphic Description of Injury, Hallucinations, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Introspection, Lightly shippy, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mostly hurt, Survival, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:28:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 28,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22487143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CandlemasBells/pseuds/CandlemasBells
Summary: Jaskier knows two things:1. He cares about Geralt.2. He ran headlong into danger when Geralt's life was at risk.But though the first statement tells him why the risk to Geralt mattered to him, it doesn't explain the course of action he took. And he would really like an answer.Because he's alone now, and with injuries like these, well... Suffice to say, if Jaskier is to die for this one act, it would be nice to know why.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 356
Kudos: 639





	1. Antecedent, Consequence

_He paces back and forth, his fingers fretting the strings of his lute. Over and over, the thought plays through his mind: I should be there. I should be there._

_And so he goes._

_The battle is audible long before he crests the hill, and his heart stutters. He picks up his pace and before long he's sprinting, catching himself on scraped and scrabbling palms as his feet slide on loose stones but he never stops, never slows. As he reaches the top of the hill, Geralt comes into view, and with him the griffon, and the blood soaking the parched earth, and the glint of Geralt's sword far from his hand. Geralt is pinned and disarmed, and the griffon raises its talons to strike._

_Geralt's name is torn from the bard's throat in a ragged cry. The griffon turns its head to look and Jaskier runs, not back the way he came, but onward..._

He wakes, and that’s a surprise in and of itself.

Thought comes to Jaskier at a trickle at first, only acknowledgments of his surroundings. _Bright,_ his inner monologue slurs as he takes in the cloudless sky. _Hot,_ as the midday sun pins him down.

And then, more urgently, _Hurt._

_Bad._

Quite abruptly, the dam bursts and Jaskier is carried away in a flood of thought and sensation. Buzzing insects, dry mouth, he'd run towards Geralt, a pain like a pick axe in his head, he'd fallen, a strange heat in his right leg, the smell of blood, where is he, how much time has passed, where's the griffon, everything is spinning-

"Focus!" he grunts, and the sound echoes in his skull. He squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself up onto his elbows, letting his throbbing head loll onto his chest. The movement sends a wave of nausea through him and he trembles. A low moan escapes his lips.

"You're going to have to do better than that."

Jaskier's eyes are open in an instant, and there's the witcher standing over him, looking every inch the solemn warrior. "Geralt!" The name is almost as sob as relief floods Jaskier's suffering body. Geralt is here. Geralt is fine. Geralt will fix this. He waits for him to brush his hair from his face, to use those deft hands to check his injuries, to scoop him up into his arms and carry him away from here-

But it doesn't happen. Jaskier blinks as his friend stares down at him impassively. "Geralt, what's- I need help." His voice trembles as bewilderment crawls through his veins. "Help me, Geralt, please. I'm-"

"Hurt." The witcher's tone is flat. "More than you realize."

The bewilderment deepens into dread. Jaskier forces a dry laugh and tries to approximate his usual patter. "I... Geralt, you know I love to play these games with you, but is now really the time?"

Geralt smirks, eyes dark, and crouches down beside him. "Jaskier. Look at this place." He gestures broadly and the bard's eyes follow his hand. They seem to be at the bottom of some sort of canyon or ravine, steep sided and bone dry, though scrubby bushes and scattered tussocks of long grass suggest that water must flow here on occasion. Jaskier squints. The rocky hill where he'd witnessed the fight between Geralt and the griffon is nowhere in sight.

"Where-?" he begins to ask, but Geralt interrupts him with a laugh. Jaskier shrinks away in distress.

"Only you would be so slow as to think I hobbled my way down from a clifftop in mere minutes to drag you out of a ravine," Geralt scoffs. "And with my injuries? Don't be an idiot."

Jaskier stares, mouth working silently for a moment. "But..." He swallows, looking over Geralt's pristine, unbloodied form. "You aren't injured."

He doesn't see him move, but suddenly Geralt's face is mere inches from the bard's, their eyes locked. "But _you_ are." Geralt slowly raises a hand to touch the back of his own head.

Tentatively, looking at Geralt with great suspicion, Jaskier mimics the gesture, running a hand over the back of his head. There's blood in his hair, a sticky cut in his scalp and-

A soft, crackling indentation in his skull.

His stomach roils in disgust and he barely turns his head before a gout of vomit spurts from his mouth, mostly water. He takes a moment to slow his breathing and wait for the nausea to subside.

Steeling himself, Jaskier stretches to look at the patch of dirt where his head lay. Blood stains the dust, but not as much as he expected. Squinting, he can make out a rock underneath, with a protrusion about the size and shape of a pecan.

About the size and shape as the dent in his head.

"Oh, gods." He shudders, gags, spews another mouthful of thin, sour vomit.

"You're wasting water," Geralt grunts, standing back again. "And there won't be more where that came from." He nods to Jaskier's side, where his ruptured water skin has given its contents to the thirsty dust.

Jaskier looks from Geralt to the waterskin and back. Then a giggle crawls from his throat, giddy and pained. He runs his bloodstained hand through his fringe. "Of all the Geralts I could have imagined, this one's more of a dick than the real thing!" At the witcher's unchanged expression, he snorts and redoubles his laughter. "I could have had you tender! Wouldn't that be a carnival, Geralt of Rivia fawning over little old Jaskier. Oh! Or imagine you without that stick up your arse. Fun Geralt! What I wouldn't give to see that. Dare I even imagine romantic Geralt, riding up on a noble steed, shirtless and breathless? Why I might swoon!"

"Jaskier-"

"Oh, piss off." Jaskier rolls his eyes. "Can't my own fantasy let me fantasize?"

"You've missed something." Geralt raises his eyebrows and flicks his gaze to Jaskier's right leg.

Remembering the strange heat of it, he looks down at the affected limb.

"Oh," Jaskier says quietly.

"Oh..." Jaskier breathes, his hand hovering over the injury.

Like the prow of some gruesome ship breaking through a wave, the bone of Jaskier's shin had thrust its way through his flesh, its jagged end tacky with drying blood and scraps of meat as it reached upward. A fly trundled its way across the bulging maw of the wound. In a daze, Jaskier shooed it away and let his arm fall back.

His lifted his gaze to the open sky, the unyielding sun, and felt a drop of sweat run across his temple. When he looked to Geralt, he saw him sitting cross-legged at his side.

"So." Geralt cocked an eyebrow. "What now?"


	2. In Spite of What You See

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Changing visions, changing memories.

Jaskier squeezes his eyes shut. Inhales. Counts to five. Exhales.

When he opens his eyes again, Geralt is no longer seated beside him.

The bard gives a shaky sigh. He may be injured and alone, but at least his hasn't lost his mind entirely. He brings his callused fingers close to the wound in his leg. Hesitates.

"And what do you think that will accomplish?"

Jaskier startles at the witcher's voice and whips his head to the left, gasping and swaying as the sudden movement sloshes his brain about his blighted skull. When the lights stop flashing, he blinks to bring the vision of his friend into focus.

Geralt is a stone's throw away, leaning against the wall of the ravine in the scant shade of midday.

Indignation stirs in Jaskier. "What?" He practically spits the word, irritable from pain and confusion. He gestures to his leg. "Too gory for the witcher? Getting some air to settle that queasy tummy of yours?"

No response aside from a raised eyebrow. Jaskier scoffs. Sniffles. Now that he's seen the wound in his leg, his body is catching up to his eyes, beginning to transform the dull heat into a piercing ache. "Well, glad to see you're enjoying the view. Good for you. I'd like to point out you've never paid this much attention to any of my performances."

This is patently false and Jaskier knows it, even if the witcher rarely looks at him while he plays. Years ago, Jaskier had noticed how, during a hunt, Geralt would turn an ear when tracking an enemy that was heard but unseen, rather than attempting to ferret it out with his eyes. From then on, Jaskier couldn't help but notice his friend assuming the same posture during the bard's performances: head tilted, one ear toward Jaskier for music, the other toward his audience for sounds of danger.

But so what if he tosses out a few of the caustic lies that creep into his heart in his weaker moments? It's not like it's really Geralt. "You know, if watching suffering is what gets you off, I must say you're in the right line of work."

Jaskier lays back, head facing towards not-Geralt to avoid putting pressure on the dent in his skull. This close to the ground, he can see the air shimmering with heat, as though it trembled beneath the sun's scorching gaze.

"That's good," he mumbles, rolling a pebble back and forth under his fingertip. "That can go in the song. Trembling 'neath its scorching gaze... Heat of a thousand summer days? Too many syllables. Something, something, blinding rays? I'll work on it."

"Speaking of the sun," Geralt replies, "you're getting burnt."

Jaskier squints at him in disbelief. "Thank you for your concern," he deadpans. "Where do you think sunburn should go on the list of injuries? Above shattered skull but below horrifically broken leg?"

"It will get worse."

"Well, when you think of a way to slay the sun, do let me know." Despite his scorn, Jaskier does lift a hand to shield his eyes from the glare.

"You can't lay out in the sun for hours. Not without water." Geralt paces closer, though somehow his features remain shaded even as he steps back into full light. "You need to move somewhere sheltered."

"Ohh, no. Oh, no no no no no." Jaskier sits back up gingerly, his voice tight with pain. "Need I remind you?" He tilts the toes of his left foot to indicate his broken leg. "Be the sun as it may, there's another, equally intractable force at play here."

"You can't be planning on waiting here for me to come and get you." Again that condescension. Jaskier bristles.

"Come off it, you won't abandon me," he asserts. "Your emotions may be as stopped up as a bottom at an orgy, but we both know you carry affection for me." Trial and error had shown Jaskier that throwing in a crass metaphor as a red herring would sometimes distract the witcher from debating him on the point of their friendship in favour of rolling his yellow eyes instead.

"You're an idiot, Jaskier."

"It's true, I-"

"Jaskier, think." Geralt's interruption is sharp. "Not even a witcher shakes off a beating like the one I just took. Not in a matter of hours. If I make it to you at all, it won't be for a long time."

"You don't know that. I don't know that," Jaskier insists. "Neither of us even remembers what happened. I mean, neither of me remembers. I mean... You know what I mean."

"You remember." Geralt's voice resonates in his chest and Jaskier suppresses a shiver. "Think."

_As he reaches the top of the hill, Geralt comes into view, and with him the griffon, and the blood soaking the parched earth, and the glint of Geralt's sword far from his hand. One of the griffon's jagged talons is embedded in the meat of Geralt's upper arm, passing clean through to the other side and anchoring him to the dirt. The impact that brought him to the ground has left him blinking hazily and choking on air. The griffon raises its talons to strike._

_Geralt's name is torn from the bard's throat in a ragged cry. The griffon turns its head to look and Jaskier runs, not back the way he came, but onward. With a screech, the monster rounds on him, tearing its serrated claw from the witcher's arm. It leaps..._

_It leaps..._

_It-_

Jaskier surfaces from his memories with a hiss of pain. The effort it took to maintain his concentration has aggravated his headache. He presses his palms against his forehead and huffs in frustration. Squinting up at the witcher, he notes that the vision has changed: Geralt's left bicep is torn open, bone visible beyond leather and skin and muscle. Jaskier bites his lip. "Alright," he concedes. "So you'll be a while." As Geralt smirks, Jaskier snarks, "Yes, yes, Geralt knows best. Geralt has never exhibited questionable judgment. An absolute pillar of good sense, that Geralt." He dashes away the beads of sweat forming on his upper lip and grinds his teeth in thought. So he's on his own for now. He's been on his own before. Next steps, next steps...

Working with battered fingertips and chipped nails, Jaskier unbuttons his lilac dupioni silk doublet and eases his arms from the sleeves, and- oh, there are definitely bruises under the skin, his back is going to look like someone spilled merlot on him in his sleep. The points are more difficult to undo than the buttons; he usually keeps them tied for ease of dressing and over time the knots have cinched themselves into near solid nodules of fabric. By the time Jaskier untangles them and shakes the doublet free of his hose, he can feel the back of his neck reddening and sweat soaking through his linen chemise. He drapes the doublet over his head as protection from the sun and ties the sleeves beneath his chin to secure it, ignoring the sting as the fabric settles on the cut in his head.

He doesn't look over at Geralt's low chuckle. Jaskier knows he looks ridiculous, he doesn't need any smart comments about the pleats flaring behind his head, or about how he looks like a chipmunk with the stuffed shoulder bands pressed to his cheeks. "You were the one who brought up sunburns, here's the solution."

But the laugh morphs and twists, and it isn't Geralt's anymore; it's smooth like honey without the sweetness. Jaskier lifts his chin toward the sky, eyes closed. "No. Absolutely not. No. Crawl back to whatever fetid corner of my mind you dragged yourself from, and wither there."

"I don't know what he sees in you," Yennefer drawls, circling him. Opening his eyes, Jaskier glowers up at her. She's wearing a scarlet satin gown with a plunging neckline and long, diaphanous sleeves that stir in the non-existent wind. Her feet are bare yet perfectly clean.

"I could say the same thing to you, sorceress." It isn't a brilliant comeback, but it will have to do. His head is pounding.

"Oh, I'm sure." Yennefer's laugh is curt and derisive as she stands in all her finery, glowing like flame in the light of the sun. Jaskier curls his lip in self-disgust as his traitorous heartbeat quickens at the sight of her. "Love the hat, by the way. Really brings out the idiot in your eyes."

Jaskier can't tell if the burning in his cheeks is from the sun or from shame. "Well, even the prettiest among us need to prioritize when life and limb are on the line. Though of course, you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" He fixes her with a glare as she rolls her eyes. "You know, for all your boasting, I happen to be the one accompanying Geralt now. Not you. So who's really the idiot here?" It's a childish, petty squabble that reeks of jealousy and desperation, but sometimes Jaskier is childish and petty.

"Still you, bard," Yennefer says, tone cool and unruffled. "After all, I'm not the one arguing with myself in a ditch." She smirks. "That griffon dropped you like the Countess de Stael."

_The griffon turns its head to look and Jaskier runs, not back the way he came, but onward. With a screech, the monster rounds on him, tearing its serrated claw from the witcher's arm. It leaps, hooks its talons into the fabric at Jaskier's shoulders, there's a blur of motion, his stomach drops-_

_-and his feet leave the ground. He watches the shrinking figure of the witcher struggle to roll over, to stand, as Jaskier dangles over the plateau, then the mountainside, then open air. Overwhelmed with the rush of motion, the intoxication of panic, the sound of powerful wingbeats buffeting his ears, he twists, reaches, sinks his fingers into a wound on the monster's leg-_

"Fuck!" Jaskier gasps, clapping shaking hands over his eyes as his jackrabbit heart pounds against his bruised ribs.

"And now, you're going to sweat to death wearing your doublet on your head, when shade is mere yards away," Yennefer pouts, a mocking edge to her tone.

Jaskier takes a shuddering breath and drops his hands. "I can't get there. I _can't_." His eyes brim with tears.

"You mean, you won't." She crouches beside him, though he refuses to meet her gaze. "Because it will hurt."

He clenches his teeth. He won't give her the satisfaction of an answer.

"And there it is: some objective proof of your idiocy." She stands, stretching languidly. "Fears pain so much that he won't act, even when the circumstances are life or death. That's established now. Yet apparently, you didn't realize that waltzing up to a frenzied griffon might be a painful experience. Didn't realize, or didn't think."

His hands clench into fists. "I'm not stupid. Obviously it occurred to me, I just-"

"And how would you know what occurred to you?" she interrupts. "After all, _Neither of us even remembers what happened._ " She speaks his words back to him in his own voice, and he shudders.

Of course he knew. He isn't stupid. Maybe he doesn't always stop to think, but that doesn't mean there aren't reasons for what he does.

On the other hand... He remembers the moment of decision, but not what he felt, not what he thought. Tentatively, he casts back, trying to reconstruct his mind, his reasons, his expectations.

_He paces back and forth, his fingers fretting the strings of his lute. Over and over, the thought plays through his mind: I should be there. I should be there._

_And so he goes, that single mantra blocking out any other consideration, a metronome for his steps._

_The battle is audible long before he crests the hill, and his heart stutters. He picks up his pace and before long he's sprinting recklessly over the rugged pathways. He slips and catches himself with scraped and scrabbling palms as his feet slide carelessly on loose stones but he never stops, never slows; fear has lit a fire at his heels and erased his reason. As he reaches the top of the hill, Geralt comes into view, and with him the griffon, and the blood soaking the parched earth, and the glint of Geralt's sword far from his hand. Geralt is pinned and disarmed, and the griffon raises its talons to strike._

_Before he can stop it, Geralt's name is torn from the bard's throat in a ragged cry. The griffon turns its head to look and Jaskier acts on pure instinct: he runs, not back the way he came, but onward. The monster leaps and its claws rake across his torso, shredding organs and gouging bone. It's agony like he cannot comprehend. Blood and viscera spill from him like burgundy from a slashed wineskin, and a horrified bewilderment fills him as he collapses and spams. He didn't actually believe this could happen. He thought he'd be fine. He thought he'd be fine. He didn't understand how-_

"No." Jaskier says aloud.

Yennefer raises an eyebrow. "No?"

"No." His voice is steady. "If I'd been killed... I knew the risk I was taking. I meant it. It was worth it."

"What was?'

"I-" Jaskier breaks off as a sudden wave of dizziness overtakes him. The world tilts and he sways with it. He moves to catch himself but his arm buckles. The best he can do is to try to fall gently, though his body still cries out when the earth rises to meet it. Somehow he's on his back, watching the clifftops spin around the bleeding eye of the sun. "I..."

"You have to move."

Geralt.

He turns his head to see his friend beckoning from the shade, a brief infinity away. "You have to move."

"I have to move," Jaskier whispers. He's no fool. He's no coward.

He props himself up on his elbows and plants his left foot in the dirt. He braces. He pushes.

The instant he begins dragging his wounded leg, a firecracker of agony bursts in the shattered bone and crackles through him. His breath catches and he forces himself to exhale, inhale. Dread constricts his throat. He steadies himself, tries again.

This time he's prepared. It burns and it stabs and it screams at him, but when it threatens to overwhelm him, there's Geralt's voice calling his name. He pushes again, and again, and again, and gods, how is there still so far to go? He pushes again. He knows he looks like an idiot scooting backwards on his bottom, but he'd rather look an idiot than die one. He squeezes his eyes shut. He pushes. He pushes. He pushes.

And then his back hits solid stone. He gasps, eyelids fluttering open in disbelief.

Shade. He's in the shade.

It isn't cold here. It isn't even particularly cool. But it's sheltered. It's something.

Geralt nods at him solemnly, his form fluctuating. _Vibrato_ , the woozy, half-focused thought drifts through Jaskier's mind. He sits a long time, breathing, hurting, smiling to himself.

It's no wonder he takes so long to hear the creature breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a lyrical excerpt from "As Long As He Needs Me", from Lionel Bart's "Oliver!".
> 
> Folks, your responses to this fic have set me all aglow during a trying time. I hope this update lives up to expectations! It's a WIP and it's proving more difficult than I anticipated to lay out the appropriate foreshadowing, though I very much enjoy the challenge.
> 
> Whether you've left a comment or a kudos, or are simply reading along, I appreciate that you've chosen to spend your time with this story. If you do choose to comment, I promise to reply; it's the least I can do for folks who put in the effort to let me know their thoughts.


	3. I Was Looking For a Fairytale

Jaskier is still too hot, but out of direct sunlight, his body has had a fighting chance to return to a more reasonable temperature. Slowly his head begins to clear; less of a soup, more of a light haze. Geralt sits beside him all the while, and in a strange way, it's nice. Well, aside from the whole open-fracture, dented-skull, desperate-thirst, socializing-with-a-hallucination aspects of the afternoon, but one can't be picky. Geralt is humming the tunes Jaskier wishes he could sing right now, and he has a rich baritone.

"You should hum more often," Jaskier mumbles, eyes half-lidded as he looks at the witcher askance. "Got a nice voice."

Geralt's lips twitch into that half-smile of his. "This? It's yours, just lower."

Jaskier nods sagely. "I stand by my statement. And anyway, 's not my fault I've got no real life example to go on." He lets out a long sigh. "Still. Could be nice. Have a few duets up our sleeves, crowd would go wild for that. I know, I know," he says, holding up a hand as Geralt opens his mouth to protest, "your image and all that. Just... a nice thought." He lets his arm fall to his side and his eyes slide shut. "You could probably handle playing spoons. Could have our own private band. Next campfire. We'll try it."

The ravine is perfectly still. Not a mouse skittering across the dirt, not a twitch of a leaf, not a breath of wind. It's a good place to wait for rescue. Jaskier settles into the rhythm of Geralt's humming, which has fallen into time with the sound of the gentle breeze.

Wait.

Breeze? He can hear the movement of air, but he can't feel it.

Before the thought can fully congeal, the centre of the ravine erupts, showering chunks of rock mere inches from Jaskier, who cries out in surprise. A hole yawns not ten feet away, and from it crawls a shaggy, grotesque mole the size of a draft horse, with massive clawed mitts and a wide snout ringed by wriggling tendrils. Jaskier can hear it breathing heavily as it sniffs the ground, moving towards the place where Jaskier had fallen. A long, sticky tongue snakes from its open mouth and licks the bloodied patch of earth.

Geralt whispers in his ear. "I told you about these." The creature apparently isn't satisfied with lapping up the leavings; it lifts its head and begins snuffling again. "Blind. Sensitive hearing. Hunt mainly by smell. With your chatter and perfume, I doubt you'll last long." The beast turns towards Jaskier and his heart leaps into his throat. "Think quickly, bard."

And so he does.

He wriggles his pen knife from his boot and flips it open. No time for fear. All the sensation he has in his wounded leg is pain anyway. With the tip of the knife, he extends the split in his skin another inch above the fracture before his hand spasms and forces him to drop the blade. He can tell from the flicking of the creature's ears that he didn't manage to entirely suppress the squeal that fought its way out of his throat. Shit. Working quickly, he pulls his doublet off his head and presses it to the cut, which is bleeding freely. Each time he shifts the fabric to soak a new portion, he bites down harder on his tongue to stifle the cries that threaten, until the taste of metal floods his mouth. Well, waste not, want not. He spits the mouthful of blood onto the doublet. The monster has begun its approach now, its tendrils vibrating as it scents the air. Jaskier pries a fist-sized rock from the cracked earth, falling back onto his elbows as it comes loose. The monster is moving more quickly now, and the ground shuffles as it lopes towards him.

"Stuff the rock in the sleeve, tie it shut." Geralt speaks as Jaskier moves, narrating more than directing. "Don't look at the monster, look where you're aiming." With a steadying breath, Jaskier takes hold of the doublet and begins spinning the rock-heavy sleeve over his head. "It can hear you, let go!"

He can smell the monster's breath now. When at last he can feel the weight of the stone straining the fabric taut, he releases it. The beautiful, marred fabric flutters across the ravine in a graceful arc, propelled by the inertia of the heavy stone. As it clatters to the ground a good thirty feet away, the monster skids to a halt and turns its ears to the sound. Then it lifts its nose and sniffs the air. All Jaskier can hear is his own pounding heart as he waits.

He waits.

Mercy of mercies, the creature turns and lumbers over to the blood-stained doublet, mistaking the fresh scent of Jaskier's decoy for a genuine meal. Jaskier releases his breath as slowly, silently as possible. But he knows the reprieve will be short-lived, and he's a sitting duck. He scans for shelter and sees only the hole from which the monster emerged, which seems to lead to a sort of tunnel. A slab of rubble forms a steep ramp only a few feet away. Bracing himself, he drags himself into position and slides down into the monster's half-collapsed tunnel, preparing to catch his full weight on his good leg.

There's an impact, and then he's lying face down at the bottom of the hole with no memory of falling. There's a sound like the shriek of a tea kettle in his ears and purple specks across his vision, but no pain. He knows without even looking that the bone of his shin has hit the ground, but that's a problem for later. He rolls over, vomits a mouthful of bile down his front, and pushes himself back to the tunnel wall. The burrow is filthy, and Jaskier's chemise is smeared with monster shit. Even with his shallow breathing, the rank smell stings his nostrils.

"It hunts by smell." Geralt's voice cuts through the whistling in Jaskier's ears. He stands in the depths of the tunnel, sweaty and ichor-spattered like when he finishes a hunt.

"It smells..." Jaskier tries to think around the twin drugs of terror and head trauma. "It smells blood." Hesitantly, he moves his hands to grip the bloodied fabric of his hose, preparing to tear it. He looks to Geralt for confirmation, but the witcher shakes his head.

"Your leg smells of blood. Your head smells of blood." Geralt crouches and meets his gaze intently. "But there are stronger smells."

Geralt has always been awfully good at battle plans.

It doesn't take long for the creature to realize that Jaskier's doublet is not, in fact, a tasty snack. Grunting and snuffling, it makes its way back to the ruins of its tunnel. The bard sits and waits, doing his utmost to slow his breathing.

"Like a performance, Jaskier," Geralt says. "Singer's breaths."

Jaskier tries, he really does, but the dread, the anticipation - it's overwhelming. "Fuck it," he sighs. "A performance, huh?" He gives Geralt a wicked, manic grin, then raises his voice in song. " _Toss a coin to your witcher!_ "

Dry and croaky as his tone may be, the effect on the creature is instant and audible. Its scrabbling footsteps approach at pace and Jaskier swallows. "That's it, you bastard! _Oh, Valley of Plenty!_ " The head crests the slope to the tunnel, tendrils waggling. " _Oh, Valley of Plenty!_ " Closer and closer, snorting and drooling. "Come on, come on, come on... _Ohhhhh!_ "

A blast of hot, damp air hits him as the creature thrusts its snout mere inches from his face. It opens its mouth-

-and Jaskier, holding fistfuls of the beast's own filth, shoves a hand into each of its nostrils.

The startled creature rears back, and Jaskier's arms come free with a wet popping sound. The beast gives a gurgling cry, and Jaskier uses the opportunity to scuttle to the side, the monster's own vocalizing covering the sound of his movements.

The beast staggers, swaying its head back and forth in an effort to locate the bard, but its snout has been successfully plugged. Without sound or smell to hunt by, the blind creature stumbles down the tunnel from whence it came.

Jaskier raises a sticky, trembling fist in silent celebration and turns to Geralt, beaming, awaiting his smile of approval-

-and finds Yennefer instead. His ire rises and his heart sinks.

"Oh, I get it now." Jaskier seethes. "You show up to knock me down every time I eke out a win, huh? Couldn't have Jaskier getting too happy."

"Your words, not mine." Yennefer shrugs and sits beside him, gestures to tracks of the mole monster. "Shame Geralt wasn't here to see that. Might have salvaged the day after the fiasco with the griffon."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Come, Jaskier," she murmurs. "We both know you'll do anything for applause. Follow a witcher so the drunks will clap. Fancy yourself a monster hunter so the witcher will clap."

_He paces back and forth, his fingers fretting the strings of his lute as he imagine his friend, with a beast and no backup. Over and over, the thought plays through his mind: I should be there. I should be there._

_And so he goes._

_The battle is audible long before he crests the hill, and his heart stutters. He needs to hurry, before it's too late. He picks up his pace and before long he's sprinting, catching himself on scraped and scrabbling palms as his feet slide on loose stones but he never stops, never slows. As he reaches the top of the hill, he takes in the scene, observing and strategizing at once: Geralt, the griffon, blood soaking the parched earth, the glint of Geralt's sword far from his hand. Geralt is pinned and disarmed, and the griffon raises its talons to strike._

_A distraction. He needs a distraction. He screams Geralt's name in a ragged cry. Just as planned, the griffon turns its head to look and Jaskier runs, not back the way he came, but onward, hoping a reckless charge will keep the beast's attention. With a screech, the monster rounds on him, tearing its serrated claw from the witcher's arm. Jaskier turns to shield his body as it leaps-_

_-and it falls sideways, a silver sword protruding from its neck._

_As the creature dies, Jaskier lowers his arms from their protective stance and shoots a shaky smile at Geralt as the witcher retrieves his weapon._

_"I though told you to stay put," Geralt grunts._

_Jaskier rolls his eyes. "I thought I just saved your life," he replies, but there's no venom in his tone. There's only relief. And subtly, underneath, pride._

_Geralt pauses, looks him up and down. "Hmm." And Jaskier knows that sound, that nod - they mean thank you._

_"Now let's get that arm tidied up." And Geralt drops the sword because, actually, he couldn't have picked it up with the way it had fallen and still gotten there in time, and hadn't he only been semi-conscious moments ago, and-_

The scenario falls apart. It had been mostly wishful thinking anyway. Yennefer was right about that, at least.

"I don't fight monsters, Yenn," he said simply. "I got lucky with this one, I could confuse it into giving up. But neither of us could kill that griffon. I couldn't help him and I knew it."

"Then why did you run?" She's close enough that he can smell her sandalwood perfume.

A cold star kindles in his gut. "Well, isn't that what you'd expect from a coward?" It's a poor deflection.

Yennefer's expression is blank and unchanging. "Why did you run towards it?"

The little star is becoming a nebula of dread. "I had to."

"Why?"

"Because I... I needed-"

"Why?" In a flash, Yennefer becomes Geralt once more, Geralt with that leaden tone and those unflinching yellow eyes. Eyes locked on Jaskier's own.

They sit there in silence for a long moment, the witcher and the bard, the air between them heavy and tense. Then Jaskier lowers his gaze.

"Good damn question, Geralt." The superhuman effects of fear are fading and Jaskier folds his arms tightly around his body as he starts to tremble. "Good damn question."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a lyrical excerpt of "True Love", from the Broadway production of "Frozen".


	4. I Could Stay Right Here, Or Disappear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains some isolated content related to suicide. To avoid this part, stop reading at "What about when the mole comes back?" and start again at "A squeal echoes from somewhere far down the tunnel" (use ctrl+F to find the lines without seeing the intervening content). A summary of what happens in this section is included in the notes at the end if you want to know what happens without actually reading the text.

He can't sit here forever. The monster is bound to come back. And with the filth and miasma of this tunnel, he's tempting illness the longer he stays. Most likely, the seeds of fever are already being sown in his blood.

But he's exhausted, and the pain that had politely stepped out for his encounter with the mole has now reclaimed his body and seems to be making up for lost time. His heartbeats pulse in his aching skull like a war drum, and a viol-player drags a bow across the nerves of his splintered bone and sets them vibrating with shrill, glassy agony. He suspects that the force of his fall may have chipped the bone, but when he manages a glance, the muck makes it impossible to tell on sight. He doesn't dare try to touch.

"You can't sit here forever." Geralt echoes his thoughts. The witcher is covered in blood from head to toe, but he seems unbothered so Jaskier doesn't ask.

"I could," Jaskier counters, voice thin. "It's nice and cool here. And I could get used to the smell; I travel with you after all." He reaches a hand up and stretches his fingers wide, closing one eye to gaze at its silhouette against the distant sky. "I could poke my fingertips up through the dirt and let them sprout flowers. Buttercups." He squints at Geralt. "That's what my-"

"-what your nickname means," Geralt finishes. "I know."

"What my name means." Jaskier corrects him, lowering his hand again. "And I know you know. Not like you've ever said anything."

"Like what?" Eloquent as ever.

Jaskier sighs. "I don't know, I... Nothing, I suppose." He flicks a pebble and it bounces off into the rubble. "I mean, you could have asked why. Seems like a reasonable question."

Geralt blinks at him, slowly. "Why?"

Jaskier rolls his eyes. "Well, now it just seems-" He breaks off mid-sentence and looks at Geralt, who's standing there with an open expression for once. Perhaps more blank than open. But he looks like he hasn't put this conversation in a box yet, isn't listening only to make up his mind. The real Geralt rarely looks like that. So he continues. "Buttercups are bright and shiny, and sort of everywhere. Persistent, sort of thing. And a little bit poisonous." He allows himself a smirk at that, but it fades a breath later. "I don't know, I- Well, it's a little like the White Wolf, I guess. Just... you know. How I wanted to be seen."

Geralt shrugs. "It doesn't matter to me how I'm seen." He isn't looking at Jaskier anymore; his eyes are fixed on a clump of grass above the bard's head.

"Oh, Geralt, can we not have that conversation now?" Jaskier rubs his face with the back of his trembling hand. "Again? Here?"

"We can talk about why you ran."

Jaskier grimaces. "Really not a great alternative there, my friend."

"What about when the mole comes back?" Still staring at the clump of grass.

Jaskier squints at the grass but can discern nothing special about it, so he chalks it up to his apparent delirium and moves on. "I'm not going to run towards the mole, if that's what you're implying." Jaksier thinks a moment. "Even if I could run."

Geralt blinks slowly. "Why not?"

Jaskier turns his palms up in a sort of exasperated shrug. "Well, because what the hell would it get me, Geralt?" he snaps. He's in pain and frustrated and doesn't want to talk right now. This chatty version of the witcher is insufferable. Is this how Geralt feels all the time?

"The same thing as sitting here." Geralt makes piercing eye contact with him. "Dead."

Jaskier crinkles his nose and speaks sarcastically. "Not exactly ideal then, is it?" He shivers.

"But it's what you want."

_He paces back and forth like a man awaiting execution, his fingers fretting the strings of his lute tunelessly. He has no more songs. Over and over, the thought plays through his mind: I should be there. I should be there. This is the place._

_And so he goes._

_The battle is audible long before he crests the hill, and his heart stutters with sickly determination. He picks up his pace and before long he's sprinting, catching himself on scraped and scrabbling palms as his feet slide on loose stones but he never stops, never slows, carried by the momentum of decision. As he reaches the top of the hill, Geralt comes into view, and with him the griffon, and the blood soaking the parched earth, and the glint of Geralt's sword far from his hand. Geralt is pinned and disarmed, and the griffon raises its talons to strike the wrong man._

_Geralt's name is torn from the bard's throat in a ragged cry. As last words go, he could do far worse. The griffon turns its head to look and Jaskier runs, not back the way he came, but onward. The monster leaps, and its weight bears him to the ground, and its talons open his chest as though his ribcage were a prawn's shell. It's agony like he cannot comprehend, and it courses through him and sets him alight. A last burst of sensation, and then-_

Jaskier snorts with shaky laughter, diffusing the heavy, curdled feeling in his chest. It isn't even worth seeing it through in his mind's eye. The mere thought of his own mortality is enough to constrict his throat with fear.

"Geralt, I've been going through hell here to stay alive." He shifts against the rock wall, trying to stretch some stiffness from his shoulders and shake the lingering dread from his reverie. "The grave holds no appeal for me."

"Then climb out of it."

"Look at you, with a metaphor! Very nice, I-"

A squeal echoes from somewhere far down the tunnel. Geralt fixes Jaskier with a sardonic glare and the bard shrinks, equal parts nervous and sheepish as he speaks. "Right, point taken. Shall we?" He pauses, thinks. "Shall... I? Oh, whatever."

He looks about, trying to discern an escape route. The hole isn't terribly deep, maybe eight feet. With the rubble, he could clamber out easily had he the use of both his legs. But as it stands...

He suspects the natural ramp he slid down on is too steep for the backwards scuttle he's been using to move around, but what alternative does he have?

He closes his eyes and steels himself, feeling his muscles tremble at the mere thought of any further exertion. But a burrow is no place for a renowned performer-composer-lover-adventurer to die. To be fair, there isn't anywhere he would particularly _like_ to die, being averse to the whole dying affair itself. But this filthy hole really would be beneath his dignity.

"Bit by bit, Jaskier," says Geralt, and Jaskier recognizes it as a memory, can hear the icy wind that was blowing at the time.

Geralt speaks again, this time in Jaskier's own voice: "It's too far." Petulant and shivering as he lay on the cracked ice, burning with cold and exhaustion.

But Geralt's voice is his own once more and he continues. "Not the shore. The next inch. You can move an inch. There you go. No, save your breath for moving. Next inch. One more inch. Now another. Keep your eyes on me." And he had. The witcher had met him halfway, where the ice was solid.

In this moment, in this stinking, sweltering pit, Jaskier looks up to see Geralt at the top in full winter gear, hair stirred by a stiff breeze and hand extended. "Next inch," whispers Jaskier. He twitches at the jolt of pain as he worms his way over to the ramp, but he makes it. The angle of the slope is strangely comfortable, and temptation to lie back and doze immense.

"Hey!" He startles at Geralt's sharp tone and his eyes snap open. "Keep your eyes on me."

Jaskier can't actually see Geralt anymore at this angle, but he's too immersed in dread to focus on antagonizing his friend. Still, he doesn't close his eyes again. He'll have to do this all in one go. If he stops, he'll slide down; if he rests, he'll lose his nerve.

"I need a beat," he says aloud. His right hand, which has trembled since the monster left, becomes steady as he places his palm against his chest. After a moment's thought, he begins striking his collarbone lightly with the joint of his thumb, the steady, muffled thump sounding not unlike a conductor's staff. The corners of his lips quirk up ever so slightly, and the set of his jaw softens as the familiar ritual of timekeeping focuses his faculties. With the beat firmly in his mind, he places his hand on the slope beside him for support in movement. It remains steady. Lying on his back with his left foot bracing him, he tenses in preparation and sings.

" _One for aspen!"_ He pushes upward on the beat, digging his fingers into the dirt. " _Two for elm!"_ A hiss of pain, but he takes another singer's breath and continues, staying in time. " _Three for the tree where you laid your helm._ " Another inch. _"Four for maple, five for pine. Six for the briar and the rose entwined."_ His arms are doing almost all the work as he drags himself upward. The muscles spasm. " _Seven for cedar, eight for larch._ " Another inch, a wheezing breath. _"Nine for the willow tree's graceful arch."_ His arms burn. How much has he even moved? " _Ten for holly, green and red._ " His heart is overwhelmingly loud. He twists his neck to squint upward, and Geralt's outstretched hand is still so far away. " _That mews up our secret-"_

His foot slips.

"Fuck!" As he begins to slide, he closes his eyes and flings an arm above his head in a last ditch attempt to clasp Geralt's hand.

Pebbles clatter to the base of the slope. But Jaskier doesn't. He's being held, no, he's holding-

He looks up. His fingers are wrapped around the clump of grass Geralt had been so fixated upon earlier, and its sturdy blades and steadfast roots are supporting his weight.

Incredulous, Jaskier laughs, and it abruptly turns into a cough as his parched throat protests. But his smile is unbroken. The grass is rooted at the top of the hole. He can do this.

He can do this.

He brings his other hand up to grasp the strands of grass, and despite his awkward, supine position, he begins his climb anew.

" _Ten for holly..."_ Hand over hand. " _...green and red._ Come on, Jaskier." His hand hits the base of the plant, and he maneuvers an elbow over the lip of the pit. " _That mews up- our secret-"_ Panting, he brings the other elbow into position. _"-marriage bed!"_ A final push and he heaves and scrambles and his arms give out from under him, but it doesn't matter.

He's made it.

He lies flat on his back on the dusty ravine floor, panting and coughing, mouth open and eyes closed. He's hurting and he's filthy and he's overheated and he's exhausted, but he's _alive_ and he's _free_.

Geralt's hand is stroking his brow. He can tell whose it is even with his eyes closed; the callused fingers and rough, meaty palm are unmistakable. Jaskier gives a woozy smile and reaches up to grasp the hand, only to have his own drop heavily onto his forehead, triggering a nauseating burst of pain from his wounded skull.

Right. Hallucination and all that. Best to let it be.

And he does. Let it be, that is. He lies there for a long time, listening to the buzzing in his head and letting his mind sink into passive observation of sensation. The heat and the throbbing are strangely hypnotic, a beat in their own right, and his foggy minds endures them with a detached fascination.

"Not gonna tell me to move?" he murmurs. "Sunburns and all that?" He attempts to mimic Geralt's growling baritone, and with the state of his throat, he gets reasonable close.

"No sunburn if there's no sun." Hm. Geralt still does a better job of Geralt. Well, hallucination-Geralt does a better job of Geralt. Of course, in a way, that means that he, Jaskier, is actually doing the-

Wait.

He opens his eyes and is met with blackness.

Instantly, panic stabs a knife through him and his thoughts race. "Oh gods, I'm blind. I'm blind. Oh no, no, no, Geralt! Geralt, I can't see, I'm-"

"You're not blind, you coward," the witcher growls, leaning into interrupting his spiraling fear. "Blink." Jaskier flutters his eyelids desperately. "Slower!"

As forces himself to slow down and works moisture back into his eyes, Jaskier begins to pick out pinpoints of light in the darkness, a bright gash in the fabric of the sky, and these forms eventually resolve themselves into the stars and moon.

"Oh." Jaskier feels a flush of embarrassment in his cheeks. Or maybe it's just the afternoon's sunburns.

"See?" Geralt grunts. "You're fine."

But a weight is settling in Jaskier's chest as he pushes himself into a seated position. "No." His voice is calm, steady, and soft. "I'm not."

Night has fallen and he is alone.

Geralt didn't come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just gonna leave this here like I didn't abandon this fic for 18 days.
> 
> Summary of content related to suicide: Jaskier's hallucination suggests that he may have ran towards the griffin in order to kill himself. Jaskier considers what his thought process would have been were that the case and concludes that that was not his reasoning and that he is very definitely not suicidal.


	5. His World Will Go On Turning

_Breaking their fast has become Jaskier's least favourite part of the day. They aren't facing each other when they're walking. Sleeping provides the wonderful barrier of unconsciousness. And dinner means it's nearly time for bed. But breakfast..._

_Breakfast sets the tone for the whole day. And neither of them are at their best in the morning, with new aches and pains from sleeping rough, and an additional day's worth of unresolved grievances on their plates. And those grievances are piling up._

_Neither of them had meant to bother the other at first. They were just tired. There was Roach's sprain, and the blocked path, and the detour through the mud, and Geralt's ruined gear, and the week of rain, and Jaskier's broken strings, and the underpayments, and the spoiled food. So they got snappish, and every slight each received made the next one they gave feel justified. It was the special kind of grating that only those closest to you can achieve, because you know that you can do better and so can they. And neither of you do. You just dig in your heels and tell yourself tasty little stories about why it's their fault._

_And now the two are eating breakfast in silence. Again. And the day is sweltering. Again. And they're both miserable and much too proud. Again._

_But Jaskier can feel a change in the dynamic between them today. Less aggressive, more... wounded._

_Are you actually going to eat something, or are you going to stare at it until we break camp and then complain you're hungry?" Geralt speaks with the same cadence he's been using of late to needle the bard, but after all these years, Jaskier can tell his heart isn't in it._

_Jaskier chews the inside of his cheek a moment, then eats a spoonful of his porridge. Eked out by some blueberries Geralt had gathered yesterday, it honestly isn't half bad. Jaskier gives a tentative smile. "Just... lost in thought, that's all." He dips his chin to indicate his bowl. "It's good."_

_Geralt eyes him with naked suspicion. "You can't have seconds."_

_Jaskier raises his hands as though showing he's unarmed. "No no, I just... It's a nice breakfast. Thanks."_

_The witcher holds his gaze a moment longer and Jaskier broadens his smile encouragingly. Geralt turns his head and grunts. "Hm."_

_And things are okay again._

_They pack up their possessions with little discussion, feeling the tension drain away like sand through a sieve. Things are so much more relaxed that it's only minutes into their journeying that Jaskier strikes up a conversation._

_"So!" He keeps he tone deliberately light, still wary of accidentally triggering another round of bickering. "Where are we off to today?"_

_"See that hill?" Geralt jerks his chin to the west to indicate the sizeable peak that dominated the scrublands. “Griffin’s been bothering hunters. Got a nest up there.”_

_Damn it._

_Jaskier wants to argue that Geralt is tired, that they should at least stop by the hunting lodge and restock, that there is no rush. But the peace between them feels like it could shatter with the barest hint of contradiction, and he's missed this so terribly, this easy companionship._

_So he smiles and says nothing until they reach Geralt calls a halt midway up the hill and tells Jaskier to wait._

_"Are you sure?" Jaskier says, rubbing his thumb and forefingers together anxiously. "I mean... Never hurts to have backup, right?"_

_Geralt raises a snowy eyebrow. "I can handle this one." The witcher marches up the hill alone. "I'll be back soon. Don't go anywhere," he calls back to Jaskier._

_"Of course," Jaskier says half to himself, smile fading. "I trust you."_

_And so he stays._

Jaskier awakens with a gasp.

He's splayed out on the dust, bathed in milky moonlight. The ravine was baking in the sun so long that, even at night, it's an oven. Still, gooseflesh pricks up across Jaskier's skin as a chill runs through him. He can't tell if he's trembling or shivering.

"Is there a difference?"

"Fuck, Yennefer." He runs a hand through his hair, not caring about the filth. "Can you let me waste away in peace?"

From his other side, Geralt speaks up. "Trembling could be hunger, thirst, exhaustion. Shivering is fever or overheating."

Jaskier snaps his fingers and points at the witcher. "There it is." He lets his arm fall back. "And with that information, I can do... fuck all." He closes his eyes.

"As usual." Yennefer's voice, to his right.

Before Jaskier can reply, Geralt cuts in. "He's useful. He keeps me company and cooks meals. He helps."

Yennefer laughs. "Yes, and a millstone would help you make flour, but you don't gad about in the woods with it weighing you down."

Jaskier sighs. This isn't their first argument. They'd been arguing before he fell asleep, though he can't remember what they'd argued about. Could have been the same thing, for all he knows. Back and forth, back and forth. His head starts to pound as their voices overlap, and he presses his palms against his temples, grimacing. It's a morass of sound and he doesn't want to hear it.

" _In the green, green valley, there's a clear, clear pool_ ," he sings under his breath, trying to block out their bickering. " _Blow, breezes, blow!_ "

He'd hoped that perhaps they'd hear his singing and shut up, but no such luck. He scowls and sings louder, forcing the notes past dry, battered vocal cords. " _In the green, green valley grows a white, white lily in a clear, clear pool. Blow, breezes, blow!_ "

"I suppose it must be gratifying to have a lapdog, but really it's-"

"I could have left him any time and I didn't-"

" _In the green, green valley sits a bright, bright beetle on a white, white lily-_ "

"Then why don't you just-"

"You wouldn't understand-

" _In the green, green valley-_ "

"-slowing the entire-"

"In every town, we-"

" _-breezes, blow!_ "

"Wasteful-"

" _-in a clear, clear pool-_ "

"-loyalty, for-"

"Shut up!" Jaskier screams, sitting bolt upright.

Silence. Blackness eats away at his vision but he resists the urge to pass out, taking shuddering breath after shuddering breath.

When his vision clears, Yennefer is stretched out languidly beside him, dressed in gauzy white. Geralt is nowhere to be seen. Wonderful.

Yennefer smiles at Jaskier as though he's a bug in a jar. "Finally realized that you can't cover up the truth with singing?"

"Watch me," he snaps, curling his shoulders in defensively.

She leans closer and trails a finger across his jawline, and he flinches away as another chill runs through him. "I suppose you can fool most people. 'Toss a Coin' and all that."

"You have no idea what you're talking about." His tone is flat and sullen, and he lowers his chin to his chest.

"Come, Jaskier," Yennefer purrs. "You're not exactly a man of hidden depths." She stretches to looks skyward at the star-spattered sky and gestures broadly. "At least you'll live on in your music. You're never dead while they sing your songs, isn't that what bards say?"

Yennefer's words turn his heart to lead. "Don't," he whispers, trying to breathe around the weight in his chest.

"What?" She turns to him, amused. "Aren't you the one saying you don't want to die? I thought artistic immortality would appeal to you."

"Oh, immortality, yes," he says, feigning a dismissive tone as he fights tears. "And sure, the music would live on. But here's an interesting fact, Yennefer: _I'm not my music._ " He taps the dirt to punctuate the statement.

Yennefer runs a hand through his hair, and it feels like a mockery of those quiet moments when Jaskier has done the same for his witcher. "Aren't you, though? Tell me honestly, Jaskier, what would you be without it?"

"Devasted. And still me." He traces slow circles in the dust with his forefinger. "That's what you don't understand, and Geralt does. Because you? You _are_ your magic. And it's left you hollow. Geralt and I are different."

Now Yennefer pulls back, laughing in earnest, and he hates how her derision makes his cheeks flush with shame. "You're nothing like Geralt."

He speaks defensively. "We both have our tools. I've got my music, and he's got his swords. But he isn't his swords, no matter how people see him. He just uses them to make the world the way he needs it to be." Jaskier leans forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. "I love my music. It's my joy. But it's also a tool to make the world the way I need it to be. More playful, or lighter, or more sincere, or merrier." He bites his lip. "Or better for Geralt."

"So you spin Geralt into a hero through lies."

"Geralt _is_ a hero." Jaskier's contradiction is firm and immediate. "But not in the tidy way people want. I just... tidy it. Sometimes it takes a lie to get people to see the truth. But really, it doesn't matter if it's true. It's what he deserves. To be adored. He _deserves_ it."

Jaskier sighs. Yennefer is still seated beside him, but he's no longer speaking to her. "The world can say what it wants about me. They can believe that I'm my performances and nothing else. But Geralt should be seen for who he is. The way I see him." His voice turns wistful. "Who knows... Maybe he'll even start to see it himself."

"And you're willing to make yourself and your work a caricature to make that happen." He blinks, remembering Yennefer's presence. He doesn't look over, but slowly he smirks, and there's an edge to it.

"Oh, Yennefer," he breathes, gazing into the black maw of the sky. "The things I'd do for him... You haven't even _begun_ to plumb the depths."

And then suddenly her face is directly in front of his, breathing hot, dry air into his mouth. "Would you die for him?"

_He paces back and forth, his fingers fretting the strings of his lute tunelessly to try and quell his mounting fear. Over and over, the thought plays through his mind: I should be there. I should be there._

_And so he goes, danger be damned, because that's Geralt up there._

_The battle is audible long before he crests the hill, and his heart stutters with dread. He picks up his pace and before long he's sprinting, catching himself on scraped and scrabbling palms as his feet slide on loose stones but he never stops, never slows, because he can't be too late, please, no. As he reaches the top of the hill, Geralt comes into view, and with him the griffon, and the blood soaking the parched earth, and the glint of Geralt's sword far from his hand. Geralt is pinned and disarmed, and the griffon raises its talons to strike, and Jaskier cannot allow this._

_Geralt's name is torn from the bard's throat in a ragged cry, a sound riven with love and grief. The griffon turns its head to look and Jaskier runs, not back the way he came, but onward. It's no choice at all. The monster leaps, and its weight bears him to the ground, and its talons rend his organs, but Geralt is safe, and its beak crushes his bones, but Geralt is safe, and his body is meat, but Geralt is safe._

_It's the heat that he feels, the wetness, more than he feels the pain. The wounds are mortal, clearly mortal, even as the griffin continues its butchery; a wide pool of blood is already seeping into the dust around him like a crimson halo, and chunks of gore spatter the creature as it digs ever deeper._

_And then the weight is gone, and there are sounds of cries and clashing, but they're rather distant now over the river in his ears. Thought begins to slip away._

_And then that hand catches his and that voice cuts through the fog._

_"Jaskier, you fool, how could you-" Geralt is cut off by a thick sob that seizes his air. He presses Jaskier's soft, paling fingers between his scarred palms, and Geralt is whole and well and so, so beautiful. Gods, Jaskier would miss him._

_"It's okay," he rasps, smiling tremulously. "I'd do it again." Of course he would._

_"You... No, Jaskier. You shouldn't be- You have so much more life..."_

_"It's all yours, now." His eyes begin to lose their focus. Fear rises in him, and sorrow. But not regret. Besides, it's all dimming anyway._

_"I'm here, Jaskier." Geralt's voice breaks. "I'm here. Thank you."_

_And with Geralt's gratitude like a lullaby in his ears, he-_

No.

"I wouldn't die for Geralt." When Jaskier speaks, his voice is soft but steady.

Yennefer smirks. "Found the limit of your loyalty then?"

"The opposite." He closes his eyes. "I couldn't add my death to his consicence. Geralt doesn't want a martyr. As much as it would gut me..." Jaskier draws a hissing breath through his teeth. "I'd rather live without him than die knowing I'd put another burden on him. When he remembers me, it won't be with resentment."

"That's a convenient way to make your cowardice noble." Dark bags have appeared under Yennefer's eyes, and her skin seems to be flaking. "I almost pity you, pining after a man who doesn't care if you live or die. Has it occurred to you in your arrogance that Geralt might not become a wounded widower should you die in his defense? That he might count himself lucky and move along?"

"I know him, Yenn. He says so much, about me, about himself... But I see him. What he does. And that's how I know." He lifts his face skyward to the winking dawn. "He cares for me. And he won't abandon me now. He needs someone who sees him, almost as much as..." Jaskier trails off, heart quickening.

"As much as what?" Yennefer is gone and Geralt is standing over him, white hair limned faintly in pink by the rising sun.

"You can't see me." Jaskier breathes. "You'd have to come right to the edge of the cliff to notice me down here. And if you're hurt..." His eyes scan the ravine frantically, searching for something, anything that could-

His gaze lights on a tussock of grass.

Long, sturdy grass.

He's getting out of here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first spoken words in this fic that didn't come from Jaskier's head! I mean, it's a flashback, but still.
> 
> The conversation between Jaskier and Yenn went through many, many different iterations before I finally decided to just go ahead and post. Hopefully I chose the right version!
> 
> Chapter title is an excerpt of lyrics from "On My Own", from "Les Misérables".
> 
> By the way, if anyone is taking prompts, I've got a whole collection of dialogue excerpts from Canadian television that I think would work well for this fandom.
> 
> One more thing: If I wrote some Geralt/Jaskier one-shots with the purpose of demonstrating historical medical practices to help writers, would there be any interest?
> 
> Hope everyone out there is holding up okay! Thanks for sticking with me!


	6. Or were you just being kind?

" _Make a braid in the shade, Geralt's coming to my aid._ "

The little ditty doesn't have much of a tune and honestly isn't very good, but Jaskier doesn't care. He's been braiding grass for hours now and he's got a substantial length of rope. He can hardly believe how well it's going. His mood is so good that he barely even notices any pain when he has to drag himself over to another clump of grass. It's sometimes hard to remember why he's braiding, but he keeps going, secure in the knowledge that his purpose will wander back into his mind eventually. It always has so far.

Geralt is standing over him, brooding. As usual. The witcher has been helpfully pointing out errors this entire time, but even his dour presence can't dampen Jaskier's spirits. After all, he knows what to do now.

"You're on your way," he says to Geralt, slurring only a little, his tone quite chipper indeed. "I can just feel it!" His entire body is buzzing and a lightness in his head casts a veneer of unrealness over the whole situation. How strange it will be to escape this place!

"If I'm on my way, then you should stay put," Geralt growls.

Jaskiers _tsk_ s, waggling a scolding finger at his friend. "Now now, Geralt, we've been over this." He begins splicing in another length of grass as he speaks. "I need to be more visible. So I need to get to the top."

"The top of the thirty foot, almost sheer cliff," Geralt deadpans. "With a broken leg."

" _And,_ " Jaskier says, holding up his handiwork, "a rope. Don't need legs if you have arms and a rope." He flashes a bright grin from dry, cracked lips. "Come on, where's your faith in your old pal?"

"You aren't an athlete," Geralt counters. "And you aren't well."

Jaskier scoffs. "This is the best I've felt since falling in, Geralt. If I could fight a mole monster then, I can climb a rope now."

"Jaskier, _think._ " Geralt paces in a circle around him. Jaskier tries to follow his movements, but the attempt makes his head spin so he closes his eyes. "How long has it been since you've eaten? Since you've drank? Slept rather than passed out? There's no strength in you."

Jaskier cracks open an eye to glare at Geralt. "You're standing on my rope." He tugs it over and continues braiding, squinting against the sun.

"You're overheating."

"Please." Jaskier rolls his eyes, feeling them drag across his lids like abrasive. "I'm not even sweating!" It's true. Though his skin is flushed, it's completely dry.

"Jaskier-"

" _Actually,_ Geralt," the bard interrupts, annoyance flaring up in his chest, "I have rather a lot to do here. So unless you're going to start being supportive, you can shove off."

No reply. When he looks up from his braiding, Geralt is gone.

Oh.

"Good," Jaskier says loudly, voice trembling only slightly. "That's... Yes, that's what I want." His tone dwindles to a half-hearted mutter. "No distractions. Going to just... Right."

The work is strangely hypnotic, and he finds himself unable to dwell on Geralt's absence for long as he becomes captivated by the movement of the strands. Over, under, over, under... The fibres swim before his vision, seeming to twist and contort and wrap around each other, even when he pauses to grab fresh grass.

Overhead, the sun pulses in time with his heartbeat. In his excitement, his breathing is quick and shallow. He is excited, isn't he? He must be. Because he's...

The thought slips away. That's alright. He's got rope. He's made a rope. He's going to...

Tie a knot. No. Tie a slipknot. Because there's a branch.

"Going to pull it tight," Jaskier mumbles. "Tight around the branch." He frowns. "Because..." He looks around, looks up. The branch overhanging the cliff's edge ripples in the wind. Wind? Sun. "I need to climb!" Yes. That's it. Getting out of the ravine.

He wriggles into position beneath the branch. He can't feel he hands very well so it takes a few tries, but he manages a slipknot near the end of the rope. He leaves the loop wide to give him a better chance of making his target.

"Good idea, Jaskier," he grins. "Right. You can do this." Geralt was worried about nothing. He'll show him.

Jaskier winds up and pitches the rope. Not even close. "Heavier than I thought," he says aloud to himself. "Adjust."

He places his hand further down this time and starts by spinning the loop above his head. Closer. Seems closer, anyway. It thumps back to the earth, sending up a puff of dust.

"Once more, Jaskier." He drags it back, and the sound is like a hissing snake. "Once more."

This time, he spins it vertically, hoping the new angle would be an improvement. He releases it and it flies from his grasp, arcing upward-

-and then a hand bats it out of the air.

"Geralt," Jaskier growls at the man standing over him, blocking his view of the branch.

"Don't." Geralt's tone is flat, hollow.

"Geralt. Move." Jaskier's attempt to sound threatening is undermined somewhat by his being out of breath.

Geralt's eyes bore into Jaskier, seeming to grow larger in his head. "Don't."

In a fit of pique, Jaskier throws the rope.

Geralt hits it off course.

Jaskier drags it back. Throws it. Geralt intervenes.

Jaskier glares, fury pounding against his chest. "No. Stop. Let me do what I need to do." He grits his teeth. "I need... I need to do what you won't, Geralt." He slams his palm against the dirt. "Let me show you!"

And with rage coursing through his veins, electrifying his muscles, he throws the rope again. And again. Pitching forward, stretching and straining, panting and coughing. Geralt's form shimmers in front of him, becomes a silhouette, grows and shrinks, shines white-hot. Flecks of foamy spit cling to Jaskier's lips and he gulps in air and he doesn't stop. Again. And again.

Until he falls backward, shaking.

Did he fall asleep? The sun had dragged itself to its apogee last he remembered. Now it was beginning its collapse towards the horizon, drawing out mid-afternoon shadows in its wake. Jaskier blinks, looks for Geralt.

Geralt is standing on the branch. There is a rope looped around the branch.

There is a rope looped around the branch.

Jaskier's eyes grow wide and a fluttering giddiness bubbles through him. He sits up like a marionette and watches as his hands reach out and tug and the rope cinches itself tight.

Right.

Hand over hand. He's moving. He's arms begin to bear his weight. They're holding.

"Stop." Geralt's voice. Or maybe his own voice. He keeps going.

He clutches the rope tight to his chest. It drags along his face as he hauls himself up, and up. As his arms begin to tremble, his thighs wrap around and take some of the weight. He moves like an inch worm.

"The next inch," Jaskier breathes over the rushing in his ears. His arms are going numb.

"Stop." The sound echoes and echoes. He can't stop.

Hand over hand. Another inch. Another inch.

And his legs go limp.

_No._ He can't move them.

Fuck, his shoulders. His shoulders are on fire. "No," he gasps, gripping tighter.

And his arms give out. And his hands slide. And he's standing on air.

The mouth of the sky swallows him in flame.

_If he'd known there were two, he'd have used a different strategy._

_If he'd known there were two, he'd have paced himself. He wouldn't already be flagging._

_He should have known there were two. He's made to hunt monsters. It's what he does._

_Stupid._

_He spins on the balls of his feet, putting as much momentum into the sword as he can, and not noticing at all the talon swinging towards him._

_It catches him in the stomach, just below the ribs, and his feet leave the ground. Another heavy impact as he lands, slides on his back, pain blossoming in his head. His lungs burn but refuse to take in air, and his whole chest is screaming and his vision is swimming._

_His vision is clear enough to see the griffon, though. It hulks over him and its dagger claw punches through his upper arm. He spasms, unable to breathe, unable to scream._

_Stupid, stupid-_

_"Geralt!"_

_He feels the muscles tear when the griffon wrenches its talon free. As it bounds away, the bindings around his lungs snap and he chokes and coughs and sucks in a torrent of air. Bleeding and sputtering, he rolls onto his side, forces himself to his knees, sways, steadies, looks up-_

_-and watches the bard plummet._

_Fuck._

_And then the darkness swallows him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all once again for your kind words and your patience. I hope this chapter lives up to expectations! I'm expecting to have a bit more time to write this week, but the unexpected has become the order of the day lately, so we'll see. Rest assured, this fic will be finished!  
> Chapter title is a lyrical excerpt from "Losing My Mind", from Stephen Sondheim's "Follies". Bonus points to anyone who figures out how all these titles are linked to the story.


	7. The earth turns, the sun burns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, but I want the next one to stand alone, so here it is!  
> Fair warning: This one is sad and gruesome. Proceed wisely.
> 
> Title is a lyrical excerpt from "Without You", from the musical "RENT" by Johnathan Larson.

When he shivers awake from a unremembered nightmare, it is to overpowering misery.

Misery of a mind that has enough clarity to realize his foolishness but too little clarity to focus on anything else. Misery of a heart that aches with fear and sorrow, that longs for comfort and for company, but finds none. And misery of a body pushed beyond its endurance.

Perhaps that wording is rather melodramatic. If he were more sound of mind, he might roll his eyes at his own inner monologue. Then again, he would also probably feel that he's earned a bit of melodrama, that if anything is worthy of melodrama it would be this.

He failed. He's trapped. He's abandoned, even by his hallucinations

And when he fell, he fell feet first.

When he finally dared to look at his leg, his stomach heaved until he was breathless and weak, despite there being nothing to bring up. The force of his fall has twisted the bone aggressively, turning his foot with it. Now it's angled toward the left so that, although he's rolled over to lie on his back, his foot is parallel with the ground; any further and his toes would be pointing backwards. The surrounding flesh is stretched and torn where the bone forced its way through. It looks inhuman.

He turns his head to the side and feels his nose dripping. He'd thought he didn't have enough moisture left in him for tears. He squints. The drops aren't the clear mucus of weeping; they're a strange shade of yellow. They morph and shift into yellow eyes, gazing back at him.

"No," he whispers, voice thin and trembling. "Don't look at me like this. Don't see me."

The eyes blink. More open up across the ground and up the wall of the ravine. He curls in on himself as much as he can as they whisper and shriek.

"Little buttercup." "Shiny buttercup." "Poisonous buttercup." "Laughing buttercup." "Shallow buttercup." "Buttercup whore." "Buttercup fool."

And then, for the first time, it really hits him. "I could die here." Dread chills his heart. "And then they'll sing my songs and take my words and they'll say it's me when they don't even _know_ me, and I'll be erased. They'll kill me again." He squeezes his eyes shut against tears he's too dry to even form. "I could die here and no one would know why. Not even me."

No tears fall, but still he sobs himself to insensibility.

* * *

Geralt saddles Roach. He'd hated to delay the search for the bard, but knew he wouldn't be any good to him if he bled out or developed a fever. He hadn't meant to sleep as long as he did, though; it's mid-afternoon. He must have hit his head harder than he realized. _Weak_ , he thinks as he mounts the horse.

He pats her neck. "Come on, Roach." As she starts to amble down the path, he resists the temptation to urge her to move faster. It's too risky in this heat. "That's it, take your time." He sighs. "We aren't in a hurry." He knew better than that. They'd need to save their water.

* * *

Jaskier watches as Geralt drinks deeply from a bowl of water. Cool liquid flows from the corners of his mouth down his chin, caresses his neck, falls in heavy drops to the sun-baked earth. His eyes meet Jaskier's and he offers the bowl, but Jaskier cannot stand, cannot reach. He's too heavy. A soft, slender hand takes hold of the proffered bowl instead, and Jaskier can only watch as Yennefer slakes her thirst in greedy gulps. When she pulls away, her maw is soaked with blood. Geralt places his hands on the bowl next to hers, and together they pour a stream of blinding light onto Jaskier, and his scream is like liquid glass.

* * *

"We've got the lute, at least," Geralt says as they pass through a patch of tiny white flowers. They crumble under Roach's hooves. "We can give it to..." He trails off, uncertain who they'd give it to. The bard had no obvious next-of-kin. His social circle was as broad as it was shallow. Nothing to be done about it. Geralt moves on. "Hopefully he's next to the ravine, not in it. Don't know if these stitches would hold up to a climb." His self-surgery had been clumsy and he could feel the wound straining against the threads that held it closed.

At least he had the medical supplies with him. That's why he brought them: to tend to his arm should something happen. There was no other reason to bring them. It would be foolish to hope otherwise.

The mountain's shadow lengthens as he eats a light meal. He doesn't have the stomach for anything more.

* * *

The sun bears down on the horizon, closer and closer. It presses against Jaskier's chest and drives the breath from him with its ancient weight. His mind isn't crushed. His mind is light and wandering and helpless somewhere behind the sun, or maybe on top of it.

* * *

"Took the whole evening to peel the tar off him. Haven't been back to Ostraken since." He chuckles lightly to himself. "Never seen a man's eyes go so wide." The chuckle fades. "Probably missed our chance on the eyes, huh?" He shifts in the saddle. "Birds would have had those within the hour."

The closer they get to the ravine, the more foolish he feels. The bard's corpse is surely picked clean by now. And what would he do with the body anyway? He has to think practically.

But the bard, whatever else he may have been, was loyal. He owes it to him to search at the very least. Provide some sort of burial if he can. Especially considering the circumstances of his death.

He focuses his eyes on the horizon. It blurs before his eyes and he blinks to clear them. _Foolish. Just keep moving._

The late afternoon slips into evening and the hardy little flowers of the valley begin to close.

* * *

He's a maypole in a bright field of buttercups. The people dance around and around until the ribbons squeeze and suffocate him, and then they take him down and roast him, and he cannot scream, he can only sing their praises. They put coins in his mouth until he chokes and they eat the flesh from his bones. Geralt stands nearby, blindfolded, and they feed him scraps of meat from Jaskier until his stomach swells and bursts and floods the field with blood.

* * *

Lucidity visits Jaskier again in the dying light. It's an unwelcome visitor.

He'd cut open the hose of his right leg long ago to give the injury room to swell, and swell it had. His lower leg is as thick around as a melon, the bone barely peeking out now with how the flesh rose up around it. The limb looks corpse-like, mottled in colour and smeared with dirt, and blood, and shit, and any number of other dried, crusty secretions. The edges of the gash have begun to rot in the heat, attracting swarms of flies that Jaskier no longer had to energy to fight off. As a result, the wound is now a teeming, yellow-white mess of clumpy, blood-tinged pus and wriggling maggots. It smells of decay and disease. Mercifully, he can feel very little beneath his knee now, only a pulsating sensation that morphs dully between heat, pressure, and ache. If he lives, he'll certainly lose the leg. It's spoiled meat now and nothing more. The thought inspires no particular dread in Jaskier, no particular emotion at all really, beyond a dispassionate, intellectual disgust at his own body.

" _Toss a coin to your witcher..._ " The voice is clear and strong, and unmistakably his own. He turns his head and sees himself, dressed in his best finery, shining in the bloom of health as he strums his lute. He blinks.

The other Jaskier pauses in his playing and smiles. "Welcome to the finale."


	8. Will you answer me?

"Surprised to see me?" Other-Jaskier grins brightly as Jaskier stares. "Well, I suppose that's to be expected. We don't talk much, you and I. Even if I yell!"

"I..." Jaskier shakes his head slowly. "I guess I just didn't think..."

"Exactly." Other-Jaskier stands and stretches, cracking his joints. He has too many.

The setting sun has bled all over the evening, and though Jaskier's surroundings blur into a ruddy smudge, Other-Jaskier remains sharp and clear and bright in his vision. Jaskier blinks. "What... did you mean by 'finale'?"

"Come now," Other-Jaskier tuts. "Music and metaphor is your stock and trade." He leans down and taps Jaskier's nose playfully. "'Finale', as in 'finish', as in 'the end'. Of you, that is. I'd call it a grand finale, but..." He does a pirouette, hand out to indicate their surroundings. "Ah well. Shame there's no audience. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" He cocks his head, unnaturally far. "Or would you? Do you know?"

Jaskier can only stare. There's something _wrong_ about this version of him, something undefinable that makes Jaskier's bones ache with dread and his flesh scream at him to _get away now run_. But he can't. He can only stare.

"I suppose it doesn't matter," Other-Jaskier says when Jaskier fails to reply, "You'll not be in front of an audience again. Not like they ever saw you, did they? Just the bard, and the stories. But you went over that with Yennefer already." He turns a tuning peg on the lute tighter, and tighter and Jaskier tenses, expecting the string to snap. "Funny how she's been keeping you company in your dying hours."

"Dying," Jaskier whispers, tasting the word. "I'm dying." And when he says it, he knows it's true. There is no rescue. No escape. Nothing to bargain or play off as a joke. Only the end, both achingly immediate and dizzyingly surreal. The end.

"There's that self-awareness!" Other-Jaskier points at him gleefully. "And I was starting to think you'd never learn. Better late than never!" He pause, considers. "Well, not much better. But still."

"Dead." Jaskier speaks a little louder, as though its name might conjure it away or reveal it. Sorrow swells his heart.

"Dead as a doornail, to borrow a cliché." Other-Jaskier picks a few broken chords on the lute as he speaks. "You ever wonder where that saying comes from? Dead as a doornail? Something that can't live or die seems a poor choice for the metaphor." He shrugs and paces in a small circle, and Jaskier wants to scream that he's _dying_ , stop _talking_ , it's _too much_. "But what else can you be as dead as? A cuckold's bedchamber? A Nilfgaardian party?" Other-Jaskier stops playing, looks back at Jaskier over his shoulder. "A bard whose luck has run out? A fool who wouldn't learn? A man with his mouth open and his eyes shut?" He throws his head back and cackles as grief crushes Jaskier's chest. "Hard to get deader than that!"

Jaskier curls his arms around himself, nails digging into his battered palms, and a dry sob rattles his body. "No more. Please." Another sob. “I want Geralt. Bring Geralt back. I don't..." His throat tightens, strangles his words. "I don’t want to be alone."

“But you _are_ alone." Other-Jaskier is whispering in his ear. "This whole time, he’s only been in your head." His hand squeezes Jaskier's shoulder painfully. "Even out on the road, you never spoke to Geralt. Not as he was. You spoke to the man you imagined. He's only _ever_ been in your head."

"No." Jaskier breathes, pulling his arms tighter.

Other-Jaskier ignores him, sitting back and gazing at the stars. "Geralt, Yennefer, your audience... You’re only ever talking to yourself. Flattering yourself. Convincing yourself.”

Jaskier speaks through clenched teeth. "I know him. I _see_ him."

"Oh, Jaskier." Other-Jaskier drops his head with an exaggerated sigh. "Please spare us both the embarrassment. You 'see' Geralt?" He snorts with laughter. "You don't even see yourself. Fuck, I had to drag myself from the depths of your mind to tell you."

Jakiser takes a heavy breath. "I don't-"

"You never do," Other-Jaskier interrupts. "But we can't be introducing new material this late in the piece; you're a better composer than that! How about we take it from the top, hm?" He springs lightly to his feet, bouncing on tiptoe. " _Da capo al coda_. Once more through, with the real ending this time." Planting his heels, he gives a powerful strum that resonates through the ravine, through Jaskier's skull. His expression takes on the mask of performance.

"You pace back and forth, your fingers fretting the strings of your lute." Other Jaskier pantomimes the words in exaggerated, clown-like movements. "Much like the rest of your life, expending energy and achieving nothing. Over and over, the thought plays through your mind: I should be there. I should be there. That was your first mistake, thinking you had any place there at all." Another chord punctuates his words. Through his grief, Jaskier feels a new discomfort stirring in his belly.

Other-Jaskier continues, undaunted. "And so you go. There's your second mistake, acting on your impulse to help. How has that ever worked out for you?" He laughs, and it echoes and echoes and echoes. Jaskier's discomfort floods his chest, and it feels hot and unpleasant and familiar.

"The battle is audible long before you crest the hill, and your heart stutters because you know it's going badly, but _still_ you decide to insert yourself into the situation." Other-Jaskier plays a tremolo, high and out of tune. Jaskier cringes and wishes he had the strength to cover his ears.

Other-Jaskier slinks closer and closer to his double. "You pick up your pace and before long you're sprinting, catching yourself on scraped and scrabbling palms as your feet slide on loose stones but you never stop, never slow. As you reach the top of the hill, Geralt comes into view, and with him the griffon, and the blood soaking the parched earth, and the glint of Geralt's sword far from his hand. Geralt is pinned and disarmed, and the griffon raises its talons to strike. And seeing this, seeing _all this_ , you decide the best thing to do is get involved." He raises his voice sharply. "That what this scenario really needs is your intervention. That apparently things weren't bad enough already!" He's yelling now, hoarse and raw.

Jaskier squeezes his eyes shut, unable to block out the mocking sound of his own voice. "Stop," he whispers. The feeling in his chest forces itself further up, choking him.

"Geralt's name is torn from your throat in a ragged cry. How many mistakes are we up to now?" Other-Jaskier stops playing, letting the sound of the lute die out in the fading light. His eyes look black, and his face is rigid as he speaks in a low rasp. "The griffon turns its head to look and you run, not back the way you came, but onward. Onward into what has turned out to be the definitive, conclusive fuck up of your career. And after that..." He cocks his head, smiles a cruel rictus grin. "Well. Suffice it to say that at least you're consistent."

As this hot, sick feeling engulfs him, Jaskier knows it to be shame. Painful, paralyzing, unbearable shame. "Stop." He's begging now, battered voice cracking. "Stop, please. No more."

If Other-Jaskier hears him, he gives no sign. He carries on with his rebuke, now using the tone of voice Jaskier always spoke in on stage. "So it wasn't a thoughtless act, or a play for recognition, or a suicide attempt, or a noble self-sacrifice." He shrugs. "So it was something else. Here's the thing, Jaskier: _so what?_ " Other-Jaskier leans down so their faces are nearly touching. His breath smells of rot. "All this time, you've been missing the point, the real truth of all this: whatever is was, whatever you wanted - _you failed_."

Jaskier shudders. There's nothing to say.

Other-Jaskier straightens and his expression goes blank. He stares straight ahead, into the depths of the ravine. "Geralt is gone, likely dead. You're not far behind. The worst outcome, and no explanation. Not for you, not for anyone. Wrong about the griffon, wrong about Geralt, wrong about yourself. Wrong and failed and finished."

He lies down, lute on his chest, hands crossed over its neck. As Jaskier watches, he begins to shrivel and decay.

"All that remains is the coda. The end. So I'll leave you to it." Other-Jaskier is bones and putrid leather. "You're a solo act after all."

The double crumbles to dust.

Jaskier is alone.

He keens into the deaf air until he tastes blood and his voice withers to nothing.

The cream-white moon rises and drips with pus. It hurts to breathe.

He wonders what will happen to his lute.

The stars shiver.

The wondering fades. And the shame. And the grief. There is kindness in that.

Geralt comes to him. Another kindness. He watches him pace the ravine, tend to his swords.

Geralt leaves, returns.

He watches him drink, pet Roach.

Geralt leaves, returns.

He watches Geralt watching him, cutting off a length of rope, mouthing something.

He watches Geralt moving his legs. He can't feel it. Geralt picks him up and the world spins.

And then Geralt lays a hand on his eyes and everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry for this chapter.  
> I promise the comfort phase is coming.  
> Chapter title is a lyrical excerpt from "Answer Me", from "The Band's Visit" by David Yazbek. This song says more or less everything I want to say in this fic, but in 4 minutes.  
> Stay safe out there, and thanks for checking in. <3


	9. I've got ways

The sun has buried itself in the horizon when Geralt finally detects a sign of the missing bard. As he and Roach make their way across the scrubby plain to the ravine, the air faintly carries the twin scents of death: rot and shit. Geralt feels the lingering tension in his muscles dissipate. If there was any uncertainty, it is now put to rest. It's better to know.

"There's something to bury, at least," he says softly, patting Roach's neck. The horse snorts. "And the smell will lead us right there." Geralt's hands tremble and heaviness settles into his limbs as he considers the task ahead. "A grave would protect the corpse from scavengers, but trying to dig one here, with this arm..." He rolls his shoulder, testing the stitches, and shakes his head. "Probably I'll end up covering him with stones instead. It's better than nothing."

Even as thinks aloud, his senses are alert. Eyes parse the dim scenery, nose tracks the stench, ears attune to the valley's soundscape. The small evening noises wash over him. Roach's heartbeat. A snake winding through dust. A bird call. Skittering beetles. A soft-

He pulls up sharp with a gasp and holds his breath to listen.

A voice.

Keening, weeping.

_Jaskier's_ voice.

"No..." The blood drains from his face and a chill settles low in his belly. He wants to believe he misheard. He knows he didn't.

Jaskier is alive.

Oh gods, he's _alive_.

_Don't think. Just move._ "Go," he whispers, and taps Roach's sides with his legs. At his command, she picks up the pace to a trot, then a canter, until she's devouring the scrubland at a full gallop. Even now, Geralt can't help but admire the horse's speed and skill, how even in the dimming light she never stumbles. Still, it seems to take forever to reach the ravine. Gods, he's been there for _so long-_

_Focus. Find Jaskier._ He turns Roach so that she's running along the edge, towards the smell of rot. He scans the base of the cliff, eyes flicking back and forth.

There. A shadow limned in silvery moonlight, curled up against the rock face. A gasping breath escapes him. He pulls back on the reins and Roach skids to a halt. He dismounts, fumbles with the saddle bag, tugs out the pouch of medical supplies.

The cliff face is tall and sheer. Fuck. He'd forgotten rope. _Stupid._ He looks for anything that he could grip, cursing his injured arm, and trying to-

He blinks.

There's a makeshift rope looped around an overhanging branch. It stretches all the way down the cliff and dangles next to the bard's feet. How... Did Jaskier-?

_Focus. Climb._ Geralt shakes his head. Answers could wait. He goes over to the rope and gives it a sharp tug. The branch is sturdy and so is the length of braided grass. It should hold. He swings his legs over the edge and grabs on.

It's difficult to climb with his injured arm, but nothing he can't manage. As he descends into the ravine, his back to Jaskier, he feels his stomach roil at the thought of what he'll find, what wretched state the bard is in. He feels cold and hot at once as he drops to the ground and steels himself. He turns.

Geralt's heart sinks. "Oh, Jaskier," he breathes.

Looking at the bard, all Geralt can think is, _This man should not be alive._ If he stumbled on an animal in such extremity, he'd kill it out of mercy. Jaskier's hands and face are blistered with sunburn, his hair matted with blood. His leg is broken, mutilated and festering, possibly dead already. But of deeper concern to the witcher are the invisible signs of danger: the sound of his heart, too fast and too weak; the shallow puffs of air that pass for breaths; the heat radiating from his skin; the hours without food or water; the sour scent of illness.

It takes his trained senses only an instant to take all this in, and immediately Geralt draws two conclusions. Firstly, Jaskier may be past the point of rescue. Secondly, Geralt will do everything in his power to save his life.

Jaskier blinks and Geralt shakes himself from his momentary stupor. He crouches beside him placing a hand lightly on his filthy shoulder - fuck, he's too hot - and lowers his face close to his. Jaskier blinks again and makes hazy eye contact that sends a stab of pain through Geralt's chest.

"I'm..." What can he say? What can he possibly say to him now? "I'm here. I've got you." Geralt has to force the words past a hard lump in his throat. Jaskier squints and Geralt can feel his heart pounding. _Stop. Find a way out_.

It isn't safe to treat Jaskier here without any shelter, but he won’t be able to climb with him in tow. He closes his eyes and pictures the view from above. The cliff walls eventually slope down to meet the ravine floor. He just has to carry him that far, and then they can rejoin Roach and ride to the hunting lodge. The ravine would take them in that direction anyway, if not by the most efficient route.

Geralt opens his eyes, forming a plan. He'll have to cradle Jaskier in front of his chest to avoid damaging his leg further. But it will be several hours walking, and there's no way his injured arm will support Jaskier's weight that long. He needs to find some way to shift the burden to his right side.

He makes his way to the rope, grasps it just above his head, and pulls it taut. Using his steel sword, he gives it two strong whacks, slicing through with ease. He then knots the ends together to form a loop. Once satisfied the knot will hold, Geralt hangs the loop around his neck. There. It won't be comfortable for either of them, but it should do.

He strides back over to Jaskier, who's watching him with a slack expression. "For carrying," Geralt grunts by way of explanation, holding up the makeshift sling. He doesn't know why he bothers to clarify; the bard obviously has no sense of what's going on. But it would feel wrong not to say anything.

Geralt kneels by Jaskier's side and picks up his uninjured leg. The bard doesn't resist, though his expression is wary. It's the most alert he's been this entire time and Geralt takes heart at that. He feeds the limb through the loop until the rope is beneath the knee. Then he clenches his jaw, anticipating more of a fight when he moves Jaskier's broken leg.

He grasps the ankle and lifts, bending the knee slightly. Several maggots are shaken loose and flop to the ground. Geralt wrinkles his nose. Quickly but smoothly, he guides the injured leg through the loop, crossing it over the intact one so that it rests on top of it for support. Jaskier doesn't take his eyes off Geralt, doesn't even flinch. Geralt presses his lips into a thin line. No pain. A bad omen. He briefly weighs the risks and benefits of lopping the limb off at the knee here and now, but quickly decides against it; in his weakened state, the ordeal could kill Jaskier.

He stoops a little further and works his right arm underneath Jaskier's neck and shoulders, raising him slightly. The bard's head lolls and Geralt grits his teeth as he feels a soft, swollen bulge on his skull. _Later. Lift him._

Geralt takes a breath, positions his feet, and tries to stand.

Almost immediately, he stumbles. Jaskier is squirming in his arms, and Geralt can't tell if he's trying to escape or find his balance. He twists with such vigor that he nearly tumbles, and Geralt has to drop to one knee to keep him from falling.

"Keep _still,_ " Geralt hisses, as much for his own benefit as Jaskier's. He tears a strip of dark fabric from the cuff of his sleeve using his teeth, then places it over the bard's eyes, hoping that Jaskier might feel less disoriented if he can't see his shifting surroundings. To Geralt's own surprise, it does seem to calm the bard at least a little. Enough for Geralt pick him up again and shift him into carrying position. Jaskier's still twitching, but Geralt's hold is steady.

"That's it," he murmurs. "I've got you. You're safe." At the sound of his voice, Jaskier settles. Limp and still, he looks far too much like a corpse. But Geralt can feel his heartbeat, hear his breath. He's alive.

Well. If Geralt's voice soothes him...

"Going to head to the lodge," Geralt says, deep and gentle. "Get you cool water, a soft bed. Fix you up." He keeps going, planning aloud, keeping up a continual rumbling for Jaskier's sake.

And when he runs out of things to say, he mumbles over and over again: "I'm here. I'm here."

And when he loses the breath for even that, he hums.

* * *

The pain pulsates, breathing like a thing alive. It expands and fills his skull, displacing all thought and pressing against the bounds of his head as though it would shatter them to escape. Then it recedes, leaving him enough room to form a thought or two, to grasp at whatever sensations surround him and attempt to comprehend them, before the agony rushes back once again to replace all reason.

It seems an immutable, timeless state. But slowly, imperceptibly, the moments of lucidity lengthen, the waves of pain diminish, and Jaskier begins to mark the passage of time again, to piece together the goings-on around him.

Even with his bleary eyes open, he can see very little, so dim is the space in which he finds himself. But he can feel that he is lying down, submerged in icy water up to his neck, head supported by... something. His useless leg is propped up, out of the water. It's hard to understand, hard to focus... But he feels cold liquid being poured across his brow, and fingers slicking his bangs out of his eyes. Familiar fingers.

_Geralt._

His tongue is leather and his voice is dust, so it's all he can do to shape the name with his lips. He doesn't know if he's greeting the man, begging him, calling out to him, or simply naming his presence like a small child would. He doesn't know much of anything right now.

"Jaskier." The reply comes and the sound fits in his mind like a key in a lock. Geralt's voice, his _real_ voice-

A soaking cloth is placed at the corner of his mouth, allowing water to drain in. The moment the liquid touches his tongue, he is alight with desperate thirst and he gulps down the drops eagerly, straining to suck down more, more, more, lakes, rivers, oceans-

The cloth is removed and Jaskier doesn't even care that the gasp he makes is undignified, he _needs_ that water, _needs_ it -

"Easy," Geralt murmurs. The cloth is plunged into the water by Jaskier's ear, then is replaced on his cheek, dripping blessings between his lips. For a long time, he does nothing but drink, drop by drop, and breathe aching breaths. Water flows across brow a handful at a time, and it's so good.

Eventually, he tries again to speak, to ask what's happening, but his throat manages only a whimper. Geralt lays a hand on his bare skin, his forehead, his cheeks, his neck. Jaskier realizes he's shivering.

"A little cooler," Geralt says. "Then we'll get you back to the lodge."

He's already cold. Maybe this isn't the real Geralt after all.

Is he dying?

"Woah, easy." Strong hands press against his shoulders, steadying him as panic seizes his breath. "I've got you. I've got you."

Thumbs rub soft circles on his skin and his heart slows. Well. If this is another hallucination, it's a nice one.

"That's it." Geralt's voice is low and warm. "That's it."

A nice one.

Jaskier sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had this one mostly written already, so I figured I'd get that cliffhanger from yesterday resolved!  
> A little comfort, as a treat.  
> Chapter title is a lyric excerpt from "Not While I'm Around", from Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd".


	10. Belly deep through hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Contains a description of treating a rotting wound. Not for the squeamish.

Geralt can easily tell himself that he's only trembling because of Jaskier shivering against him, which is a small mercy.

He was forced to delay the trip to the lodge when Jaskier's heart rate spiked alarmingly and Geralt's priority became cooling him down _right away_. He scented water further down the ravine and sprinted for, gods, it had to have been ten minutes to find it. He almost didn't see it at first, hidden as it was. He had to carefully squeeze through a crevice barely wide enough for him with Jaskier in his arms. But on the other side was a small, sheltered oasis. It wasn't as cool as Geralt would have liked, but it was a damn sight better than than the torrid air.

He thought he might be able to clean the bard's injuries while they soaked, but stepping into the pool stirred up mucky silt and the water was opaque in a moment. Still, it would do to lower Jaskier's temperature, and provide some relief to Geralt too; after hiking with a living furnace in his arms, he was feeling the effects of the heat as well. He maneuvered the bard's legs free of the sling and settled them both into the water, with Jaskier's injured leg propped up on a rock and his head on Geralt's lap.

And then, after an age of waiting, listening, watching, checking... Jaskier woke up, and he recognized Geralt, and he took some water, and he went back to sleep. Now Geralt can finally let his composure slip.

Only slightly though. It's a good sign, but Jaskier is by no means safe and there's a great deal of work to do. He needs clean water though and he has to save what he has with him for drinking. He didn't bring enough for two, and Jaskier needs much more than he managed to swallow just now.

He checks the bard's skin again. It's finally a normal temperature, or close to it. As much as it would be pleasant to keep soaking his aching muscles, Geralt knows that it's much better to move during the relative coolness of night. He itches to get Jaskier out of his filthy clothes, but he isn't confident they'll make it to the lodge before dawn and doesn't dare expose him to the sun any more than necessary. Besides, the wet clothes should help keep him from overheating again.

Geralt does take the time to splint the leg, and in doing so, has the opportunity to examine it a little more closely. He frowns, clenching his jaw. A closer look confirms what he suspected: exposed bone. Fuck. He's seen witchers survive that sort of thing, but ordinary men?

No sense in dwelling on it before he has the chance to clean it and get a better look. In the meantime, he wraps a wide bandage around the splint to cover the injury.

They've been in the pool for well over an hour. It's time to keep moving. He slips Jaskier back into the sling and hefts him into his arms. The bard shifts and a breathy squeak escapes his lips. Geralt freezes, unsure whether he's hurt him, but Jaskier simply settles against his chest and mumbles something unintelligible. Before Geralt can respond, he's fully asleep once more.

The journey drags. Geralt is exhausted and wants nothing more than to hurry back to Roach, but Jaskier's face scrunches up with pain anytime a less-than-gentle footfall jostles him. So Geralt is forced to grit his teeth and slow his pace.

Roach, patient creature, follows along the clifftop all the while. The slope brings her closer over the course of the night, and he considers speaking with her the way he always does. But the memory of their most recent conversation leaves a bad taste in his mouth, so he chooses silence.

Geralt finally reaches the end of the ravine as the sun crawls out from behind the horizon. He whistles for Roach, who nickers softly as she walks up to nuzzle his shoulder. He smiles and rubs her nose. "Well done, Roach."

After a short break for both Roach and himself, Geralt coaxes the horse into kneeling so that he can place Jaskier on her back. He abandons the sling and sets Jaskier down on Roach so that he's sitting more or less sidesaddle. Geralt steadies him as Roach stands, then clambers on as well.

Jaskier's eyes flicker open at the movement and he whimpers.

Geralt readjusts him to that he's held securely against his chest, head on his shoulder, Geralt's good arm supporting him. "You're alright."

"Mm..." Jaskier squints and furrows his brow. "Mole?"

"What?" Geralt tilts his head. "Jaskier, it's me." Fuck, his pupils are absolutely blown. He's probably delirious.

"I know." Jaskier's raspy voice almost sounds irritated. "Where's the cliff?"

"We've been walking a few hours. We're heading back to the hunting lodge. Do you remember the lodge?" Geralt asks, speaking slowly and clearly.

Jaskier blinks. "Um. Mhm." He frowns. "But you won't know to look for me there."

Geralt considers whether it's worth trying to correct him. Maybe an explanation would help him relax. "I've already found you, Jaskier. I'm taking you back to the lodge."

"Why..." Jaskier suddenly looks on the brink of tears, breathing accelerating. "But before, when _I_ said... Just- I need to wait for you, just stop trying to keep you from _finding_ me-" He gives a hiccuping sob.

"Woah, hey there." Without even meaning to, Geralt has fallen into the tone he uses to calm Roach when she spooks. "Shh. There you go." He clicks his tongue softly and sets a hand on Jaskier's cheek. Apparently the approach is as effective with an agitated bard as it is with a horse. Jaskier's breathing slows and steadies. He sags against Geralt, seemingly drained by the outburst.

"Ready to move?" Geralt asks. Jaskier nods, thoroughly out of it. "Alright. Hold tight." He taps Roach's sides and she sets off at a gentle walk. Immediately, Jaskier lets out a high-pitched whine and gags. A trickle of water runs down his chin.

"Shit. Jaskier..." It comes out sharper than he means to and Geralt bites his cheek, chest tightening. He almost stops Roach, but the bard needs to adjust to the movement. They can't go the whole way on foot.

Fortunately, Geralt's instincts prove correct and Jaskier acclimates quickly. He doesn't vomit again, though his face is pinched with discomfort at the rocking motion of horseback riding. Geralt knows that they need to keep moving, but that pained expression is-

_Stupid. Nothing to be done. He'll just have to get used to it._ Geralt can only rely on the bard's hardiness.

While Jaskier is conscious, Geralt takes the opportunity to get a little more water into him. He dips his finger in the waterskin and slips it into the pouch of Jaskier's cheek, finding the inside of his mouth tacky from dehydration. When Jaskier consistently keeps down the fingerfuls of water, Geralt considers the situation secure enough to risk giving him a few tiny sips from the skin itself. He meets with success, though only briefly; Jaskier soon lapses back into unsettled sleep.

It's another three hours or so to the lodge at this pace. Jaskier wakes intermittently. Geralt gives him water when he'll take it, holds him still when he won't. Sometimes the bard understands what's happening, more often he doesn't. He stares intently at thin air, tells the unspeaking Geralt to be quiet, asks bizarre questions, tries to wriggle out of Geralt's grasp. The witcher's stomach clenches at the sight of Jaskier's delirium. Over and over, he reminds himself it should pass once he receives proper care. Should. If Geralt can provide proper care. He can feel his own injuries and exertion taking their toll on his hungry body and knows this doesn't bode well for when it comes time to treat Jaskier's injuries.

A copse of trees up ahead indicates that they're at long last approaching the lodge. Good. The plain is sizzling under the assault of the sun, and between Jaskier, Roach, and Geralt himself, the waterskin has long gone dry. The trees provide a measure of relief during the final quarter hour of the trek and Geralt resists the temptation to urge Roach faster, his fingers tightening on the reins at the thought of their destination being so near. Between his pounding head, burning arm, and wounded companion, nothing could be more appealing than the promise of rest and supplies.

With little direction from her exhausted rider, Roach follows the now-familiar trail past a rocky out-cropping, and Geralt sighs at the sight: A well, a shed, and a sturdy wooden building.

They've made it.

Jaskier might live after all. Might.

Geralt gathers him into his arms and hops down from Roach, clumsier than he should be. Jaskier gasps awake at the impact, squirming as though trying to regain his balance.

"Shhh," Geralt hushes him, half-heartedly. His fraying attention is focused on immediate, practical matters. Get Jaskier inside. Care for Roach. Water.

Geralt unlatches the door with his elbow, feeling Jaskier's weight already straining the hasty stitches in his shoulder. He wastes no time in depositing him on one of the four bunks on the right side of the room. Jaskier's head lolls and he mumbles something Geralt doesn't listen to, because he's already making his way to the well.

He works with the automaticity of a man trained to survive. He feeds and waters Roach, ties her in the shaded shed. He refills his waterskin, drinks deeply. He brings the bucket from the well and pours it into a large bowl, ready for wound cleaning. He tips some more water into Jaskier's mouth. He stands, swaying, in the middle of the floor.

He can't afford to sleep. But Jaskier needs a sober medic, not a man drunk on pain and the urge to rest.

"An hour," he says aloud, half to himself and half to Jaskier, who's staring at him in obvious bewilderment. Geralt sits down heavily by his companion's bedside, takes a shaky breath in and out, and slips into meditation.

Jaskier drifts. He feels like an unwilling spectator to a dialogue among his body, mind, and surroundings, all of which are chattering in languages foreign to him and each other. He's a stranger to himself, to the world. But Geralt is here. Familiar and steady. He clings to the knowledge as visions come and go, as he remembers and forgets, as he feels and fears: Geralt is here. Geralt is here. Geralt is here.

"I told her you'd come." He hears himself speaking at some undefined moment.

"Who?"

"Yennefer."

"I see."

He smiles. The smile wavers. "Hurts."

"I know."

"Mm."

That conversation, that verse is forgotten when next he wakes. But the chorus stays.

Geralt is here. Geralt is here.

Geralt is here.

"I'm here." Geralt drags himself out of meditation reluctantly as he hears Jaskier calling out his name. He was approaching an hour anyway, may as well wake.

He isn't fully refreshed, but he's somewhat revived. His head is clear at the very least. He can turn his full attention to the task at hand: saving Jaskier's life.

"There you are," Jaskier says, voice breathy. "I wondered..." Geralt doesn't respond. He's gazing down at the mess that is Jaskier's broken body, keenly aware of the overwhelming work ahead of him. He hesitates.

_Focus_. _It's no different than any job._ Just a job. That's all this is. All the bard is, for now. A job.

The only thing to do is start at the beginning.

He gazes around the lodge, looking for supplies. There are sufficient bunks, bedding, and chairs for four men; a low wooden table; a workbench; a stove; and shelves, hooks, and chests bearing all that a hunter might need to survive in the wilderness. He notices a basket of cloth-wrapped knives on the workbench and selects a short, sharp blade.

By the time Geralt returns, the bard is mostly asleep again. So much the better. Geralt goes about cutting him out of his ruined clothes. He makes quick work of the chemise with a cut along each sleeve and one down the front. It isn't difficult then to slide it out from under him, and- gods, his back and sides are bruised to shit. Are the ribs fractured?

_Nothing to be done about that. Focus._

He works off the boot of the bard's uninjured leg and slides off the sock. Jaskier, semi-conscious, wiggles his toes almost as though he's waving, which forces Geralt to restrain a snort of laughter at how out of place the gesture seems in the hazy horror they're living. Instead, he focuses on cutting away the breeches and braies. He leaves everything below the knee on the injured side; that will need to be loosened with water to keep it from tearing at the wound.

Geralt tosses the scraps of fabric aside to be burned later. Without the filthy clothes, the bard looks less like a ragged bundle and more like a human, if a broken one. Geralt clenches his jaw. It would have been easier if he'd stayed a task to accomplish instead of a person, instead of _this_ person. A strange, cold reluctance fills him as he realizes the bard will only become more familiar as he cleans him off, more Jaskier.

He'll be more difficult to hurt. And what is to come _will_ hurt.

_Stupid. Focus._

The well was low when he'd drawn water; no bath for either of them. But there's enough to clean the bard with a cloth. Geralt sifts through the various rags in a small chest, seeking the softest ones so as not to irritate the scrapes and burns. He settles on a few thin, well-worn pieces of wool, downy with age and use.

The time in the pool helped to loosen much of the dirt, which makes Geralt's task much easier, along with the fact that the bard is sleeping now and unresistant to Geralt's touch. Nevertheless, it's a slow process. The bard is thoroughly bloodied and inexplicably covered in shit, though none of the filth appears to belong to him. Considering how long he spent in the ravine, that's a concerning sign in itself. Geralt makes a mental note to get broth into him as soon as possible.

Once the bard is clean (except for the leg, the damn leg), Geralt steps outside a moment and returns with a handful of freshly picked aloe leaves, the contents of which he squeezes into an empty clay pot. When Geralt touches his burns, Jaskier's eyes snap open; he hisses in pain and tries to flinch away but the witcher's grasp is firm. As his skin registers the cooling effect of the aloe, Jaskier relaxes abruptly and closes his eyes with a whimper of pleasure. Geralt can't help a slight quirking of his lips at the almost theatrical way Jaskier's muscles go slack, how he hums in relief. With light fingers, Geralt spreads generous dollops of aloe across the angry, inflamed skin, using special care not to break any of the dozens of tiny blisters pockmarking the bard's face and hands. When he's finished, Jaskier looks a sticky mess, but he's smiling, actually smiling for the first time since Geralt found him. The witcher gives a shuddering sigh as warmth blooms in his chest, and he absently-mindedly brushes Jaskier's hair away from his face. At his touch, Jaskier glances towards him and their eyes meet. Seeing Geralt in front of him, Jaskier breaks into a woozy, adoring grin, as though Geralt is some wonderful apparition who-

_Focus_. _The real injuries._

Right.

He checks over the head first. The fractured portion is soft and bulging. Geralt, feeling his blood thicken, knows this means swelling inside the skull. An injured brain. But there's nothing he can do about it except turn the bard's head to the side to keep pressure off it. The movement disagrees with Jaskier, who vomits another mouthful of water. Geralt purses his lips and cleans off Jaskier's chin, lingering a moment to rub his back as he coughs.

_A distraction. Focus. Stop avoiding it._

Reluctantly, he pulls aways. Time to deal with the leg.

After fetching clean water for the basin, Geralt takes a steadying breath. He cuts away the boot, then the sock. Then he removes the splint.

It's gotten worse.

It shouldn't turn his stomach. He's smelled, touched, _tasted_ the filth and fluids of hundreds of monsters. Rotting corpses, horrific injuries, plague sores, they're nothing new to Geralt. He has a witcher's iron stomach.

But this is _Jaskier_.

_Jaskier's_ leg is swollen and purple, _Jaskier_ is infested with maggots, _Jaskier's_ wound is putrid and weeping pus-

_Stupid. It's no different. It's a job. Focus or he dies._ He steels himself.

"Geralt?"

Damn.

Geralt turns to face him, eyes locked on a point just above his head. "Jaskier."

"Where...?" Sweat shines on the bard's forehead and he wears a tense, unfocused expression.

"At the lodge. Hold still. I need to move your leg." Of all the moments to regain his tongue _..._

With one hand on the knee and one on the twisted foot, Geralt gently guides the limb past the edge of the low bed. Jaskier watches, silent and heart racing, but he makes no sounds of pain.

Moving slowly, Geralt lowers the leg into the basin of tepid water. It's quickly clouded as the wound begins to drain. "How does that feel?"

"Huh?" Jaskier blinks, slowly. "Um..." His gaze wanders. "Are the hunters coming back?"

Geralt huffs, his jaw twitching. "Later." He stands and stretches, then moves to the shelf of simple cookware.

"Where are you going?" Jaskier's voice cracks, though whether from dryness or emotion, Geralt can't tell.

"Dinner. You hungry?"

"Mmm..." Jaskier sounds undecided. "Feel sick."

Geralt sighs. "Think you can handle broth?" He's fully aware that the bard isn't entirely lucid, but he seems to have some awareness of his surroundings at the moment. He might be able to get a little insight into how he's feeling.

"Broth...?" Jaskier smacks his lips absently. "Um... Broth sounds good."

Geralt nods, grabs a pot and a few sticks of kindling. "I'm going to boil the water over a fire outside. I'll be back."

"Stay." Jaskier flops an arm over the edge of the bed, reaching out to him.

Pausing in the doorway, Geralt doesn't turn as he speaks. "If I light the stove, the lodge will get too hot. I'll be back in a moment." He slips out before the bard can reply.

He takes his time with the cooking setup. The bard's leg needs a long soak. And besides, the lodge smells of sweat and rot, so it's pleasant to cleanse his airways with the fragrances of wood smoke and dust and green growing things.

It's an ordinary morning. He's heating breakfast while Jaskier fetches water. He'll ride and Jaskier will walk, and they'll make their way along the Path. He might kill something. More likely he won't. Jaskier will talk and he'll listen and make comments to Roach at the bard's expense. And then evening, a hot meal and a bit of music. Tending to the horse and sharpening the swords. A bright moon and a wisp of peace in a treacherous time. It's so much more immediate when someone is there. Another witness to confirm, to interpret, to share. To keep the days from slipping away unremarked. To make them _real._

It's a pleasant thought.

A bead of sweat runs down his back and he resurfaces from his memories reluctantly. He can't put off the work forever, especially considering how his patient seemed to find the mere presence of another person soothing, even if that person is... well.

The air in the lodge is thick and heavy on Geralt's lungs, but at least Jaskier seems pleased he's back, if in an unfocused way. Geralt gives him a bit more water then hands him a short length of knotted string.

"Here," he grunts. "Get this untangled for me." That should distract him for a while, keep his hands busy. Jaskier has always been an eager helpmate; even in his current state, he begins gamely picking at the knots when Geralt requests it.

Geralt, meanwhile, rolls up his sleeves and gently extracts Jaskier's injured leg from the basin. Working one thread at a time, he removes the stained fibres of the bard's breeches from the wound. When he at last peels away the fabric and places it with the other scraps, the injury starts weeping anew. As Geralt sops up the tawny, reeking fluids with a cloth, he is finally able to get a good look at the damage.

His stomach sinks.

The limb is a grim rainbow of unnatural colours. Browns and blacks, yellows and tans, creamy whites and greyish greens... They blend together in a soupy mess of tissue and discharge around the jagged end of bone. Quelling nausea, Geralt picks up the knife and delicately scoops away what he can, sloughing it onto the pile of clothes to be burned. Constantly, his eyes flick back and forth from the wound to Jaskier's face. The bard hasn't seemed to notice Geralt's ministrations; whatever scraps of mental energy he has are fully focused on the stubborn knots in the string.

"Got one," he mumbles to Geralt as a tangle comes free.

"Good work," Geralt replies with feigned interest. "Keep going." He cuts away everything he can see that's clearly dead, opening up the injury bit by bit, waiting to hit fresh blood or living flesh.

Jaskier gasps and twitches. "Ow," he complains, his tone weak but accusatory. Geralt pulls the knife away and is met with the sight of pink tissue and a trickle of bright red blood. He can't help but smile. As atrocious as the injury is, the damage seems confined to the immediate area; beyond the rotted hole, the leg is alive and intact.

"Sorry," he says, though without any real remorse in it as he looks on his discovery. "How are those knots coming?"

Frowning at the string, Jaskier returns to his task, distracted once more. Emboldened his success, Geralt continues. It goes smoothly; he's good with a knife after thousands of monster dissections, and it seems as though Jaskier doesn't have much feeling in the wound. Soon, Geralt finds an abscess under a flap of dead skin. It needs to be drained. With a steady grip, Geralt presses the tip of the blade against the abscess to pierce it.

And Jaskier _screams-_

-and _kicks._

The calm and quiet are shattered as the bard spasms and sends his foot forcefully into the side of the basin, knocking it over. Geralt flings the knife away and jumps back with a shout as murky, foul-smelling water soaks his trousers and flows over the floorboards. He rights the basin desperately. Jaskier is _howling_ , head thrown back in an open-mouthed wail, and he's shuddering, and gasping for air, and shrieking like an animal-

And he's pressed against Geralt. Geralt, who laces gory fingers into his hair and whispers directly into his ear: "I've got you. I've got you. I'll fix it." He rocks him gently, back and forth. He hushes him, presses his cheek to his. He'd do anything, _anything_ if it would stop Jaskier from making _that noise_.

Ultimately, it isn't anything Geralt does that helps. Jaskier simply passes out from the pain. The _injury_ takes better care of him than Geralt.

_Stupid. Focus. Fix your mistake._

The witcher is nothing if not practical. While Jaskier is insensible, he cuts away the rest of the dead flesh, lances the abscess, rinses and wraps the wound. He starts a small fire outside and places the remains of Jaskier's clothing on it to burn.

Once his hands are clean, Geralt tosses some dried meat into the now-boiling stew pot, not caring at all when the steam scalds his palms. He adds copious salt and waits, pacing from Jaskier's bedside to the soup and back. By the time Jaskier stirs again, Geralt is seated beside him, holding a lukewarm bowl of broth.

Jaskier tries to smile but it's more a grimace. "Fuck," he says, wincing.

"Fuck," Geralt agrees. He adjusts the pillows and delicately repositions Jaskier for ease of swallowing. He can feel the muscles trembling under the bard's cold, clammy skin. "You need to eat."

Jaskier nods, subdued but lucid, and reaches weakly for the bowl. Geralt shakes his head. "Sit back." Though Geralt doesn't miss the tightening of Jaskier's expression, it's clear he's too drained to argue. He cooperates meekly as the witcher spoon feeds him, and he begins to relax as it restores a bit of vigor to his deprived body. He's obviously hungry. Geralt doesn't want to push him too far and have him vomit again, but Jaskier needs sustenance badly so he dares to thicken the broth with some finely crumbled biscuit.

"How much is left?" Jaskier croaks after several more mouthfuls.

Geralt stirs the soup. "About a third. Is your stomach paining you?"

Shaking his head very slightly, Jaskier speaks again. "No, I only-"

He's interrupted by another spoonful. "Then keep eating."

"Geralt." The bard's tone is irritable after he swallows. "You need to eat."

The witcher suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. "Jaskier." The bard clamps his jaw shut and purses his lips. Geralt fixes him with a glare. "Don't make me force feed you."

"You need to eat too." The words are mumbled through a clenched jaw.

"I ate while you were asleep."

"No, you didn't."

Geralt raises an eyebrow and wipes an errant drop from Jaskier's chin. "And how would you know that, hmm?"

"I don't know _that._ I know _you_." The bard's stare is keen even through half-lidded eyes.

Geralt holds his gaze a moment longer before sighing and eating a spoonful of soup. "Happy?" he asks pointedly through a mouthful of soggy biscuit.

Jaskier smiles and complies with the next spoonful. After each one, he insists Geralt have a bit himself, though the witcher is careful to take only small sips. In time, they drain the bowl.

"Honestly, Geralt," Jaskier murmurs, eyes closing as he's lowered on the bed once more, "what would you do without me?"

"My job?" Geralt smiles softly, tucking him in.

"Mm. Overrated." And with that, the bard is asleep.  
After checking his own injury and choking down some rations, Geralt drags one of the straw mattresses over and joins him in slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *drags myself out of a hole and slams this chapter down in front of everyone*
> 
> Oof. Between life and the challenge of a perspective switch, this took an inexcusably long time. Made it extra long with extra comfort, so hopefully that makes up for the delay. Thank you for your patience!
> 
> Chapter title is a lyrical excerpt from "Unworthy of Your Love", a song from Stephen Sondheim's musical "Assassins".


	11. I will stand in the dark for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Contains a paragraph in which a character dissociates. Also more gruesome wound treatment and a serious injury (please see end note for more details).

He wakes. This is the most surprising awakening of the past days, and that's saying something.

He lingers in the moment, eyes closed and unbreathing. It's the silence before singing, the blank space before the first line of poetry. If he moves, if he feels, if he _lives_ , reality will follow and there will be no turning back, not matter what he may find. He could remain here in peaceful suspension always, ever the snowflake poised on the water, ever the shooting star in the corner of the eye.

But the body will not be denied, whatever the mind may wish. His lungs fill and, _gods, he can breathe._

He's _alive_.

Gingerly, he allows himself awareness of his senses, bit by bit, as though each revelation might cause the others to shatter. He feels his heartbeat, steady in his chest. A straw mattress beneath him, a pillow under his head. Soft linen sheets on his bare skin. He smells soup, and smoke, and leather, and sweat.

He hears crickets, a distant fire. Soft, slow breaths.

He tries not to hope. He cautiously opens his eyes, keeping his head perfectly still.

The darkness of night slowly resolves itself into recognizable shapes: his own hands, the edge of a bed, a rough floor.

And Geralt.

Tears sting his eyes and the scene blurs, but the form doesn't disappear, doesn't change, doesn't move. Geralt is curled on a mattress beside his bed. A soft, breathy sob escapes Jaskier's lips as he reaches out to touch, to hold, to _know_ he's there and real.

Geralt stirs and sits up, clasping Jaskier's hand and _that's his real hand_ and he's saying his name and _that's his real voice_ and Jaskier is weeping, all hot tears and whimpering.

Geralt lays a hand on his cheek and speaks, voice tight with fear. "What's wrong? Where does it hurt?"

"You're _here._ " Jaskier's voice is thin and reedy with wonder. " _I'm_ here."

He feels Geralt still, feels some of the tension leave his muscles. "Yes, Jaskier. Do you remember?"

But Jaskier isn't listening. "You _came._ You _found me._ " He's smiling and wide-eyed as he takes in Geralt's presence, the sound and smell and sight and feel of him.

"Of course." The response is gruff but it's ragged with emotion, and suddenly it's too much for Jaskier. All of it, the pain and the fear and the waiting and _everything_ is pouring from him, tears and mucus streaming, gasping and moaning, limp and shuddering.

Geralt holds him. He neither moves nor speaks. He's so real and so himself that it overwhelms Jaskier again and again, waves of feeling crashing against him. Geralt anchors him.

And then, as quickly as it came, it passes. Jaskier's breaths even out, his tears dry. He sags back and Geralt slowly releases him. He's light-headed and his body is humming like a gently plucked string.

"Water and a light," the witcher rumbles, easing away and standing. Jaskier can hear him as he moves about, and he clings to the sounds. The ruddy light of a tallow candle illuminates the lodge, and Geralt is coming back with a tin cup full of cool water. Jaskier drinks, and it's _so good_ , and his eyes never leave Geralt's face.

The cup is filled twice more. Twice more he drains it.

Geralt sets the cup aside and tilts his head. "Better?"

"Mhm." Jaskier smiles. He knows he's in pain but he can't bring himself to care. _He's here. I'm here._

Geralt sits back on his heels. "Do you know where you are?"

"The hunting lodge," Jaskier answers promptly. His mind is clearing. "Wait. Did you...?" He furrows his brow. "I've woken up here already. You fed me soup. And there was something else...?"

The relief is plain on Geralt's face. "Yes. I brought you here, tended to your injuries, and gave you some broth."

"I remember." Jaskier shifts and regrets it immediately as his entire body flashes with pain.

Geralt frowns at his wince. "How do you feel?"

Jaskier almost laughs at the question, but he knows that Geralt is looking for something more specific than "awful." The overpowering emotions he weathered moments ago have subsided and left a wounded body in their wake. "Exhausted," he supplies after a moment's thought. "Headache's an absolute bitch. Don't think there's an inch of me that isn't bruised." He sighs. "In a word, Geralt: extremely unwell. And that's two words, so you know it's serious." He can't muster the energy for a comic delivery, but Geralt still gives him a half-smile.

"Is that all?" A rare joke from Geralt. He sets a comforting hand on the bard's shoulder.

Jaskier shivers, feeling more drained by the second. "Are there any more blankets about?"

Geralt's expression doesn't change, but there's a slight tightening of his fingers on the bard's shoulder. "I'll get you warm broth."

That isn't really an answer, but Jaskier feels too ill to dwell on it. Fortunately, Geralt busies himself with the bard's care and he can allow himself to be a passive observer. Geralt dabs aloe onto his skin, checks on his injured skull and leg, plies him with bitter teas. He doesn't give him more blankets, which Jaskier can't make sense of, but he doesn't argue. He probably couldn't if he tried; even his attempts at basic conversation are clumsy and short-lived. He's hazy with pain and malaise, and as night passes into dawn he reaches the end of his strength, unable to lift a finger or utter a word without becoming breathless.

Geralt notices and lays a heavy hand on his brow. "Sleep," he murmurs. "It will help."

Feeling entirely unable to muster a reply, Jaskier dozes off, assuming that's answer enough.

"He has no idea," Geralt says to Roach as he brushes her coat at sunrise. "Thinks he's been rescued."

Yes, Jaskier managed several hours of consciousness, and yes, he was lucid for all of it. But Geralt could feel the fever heat of his skin when he'd held the weeping bard, and the willow bark tea had done little to lower his temperature.

"Who knows how long he's been feverish?" Geralt mutters, silently cursing himself. "He was hot from the sun when I found him. Could have been sick then, too." He pauses the brush. "Probably was. Leg had already started to rot."

He shakes his head and continues brushing, softly reassuring the horse and taking care not to get rough with the strokes as his muscles tense. Normally, the monotony of brushing allows Geralt to quiet his mind. But his thoughts keep drifting back to the sickly bard in the lodge.

When he'd checked on Jaskier's leg, the wound seemed unchanged. The foot, however, was purple and swollen, with grey-blue nails. Under the guise of adjusting the bedding, Geralt waited until the bard was looking elsewhere and gave the bottom of his foot a firm tap, but either Jaskier didn't notice or he didn't care. With a heavy feeling in his gut, Geralt located a soft patch of skin on the bard's foot and pinched, hard. No reaction.

Jaskier needs a doctor. All he has Geralt. The nearest town is a full day's ride away.

He has to set the bone today.

Jaskier is not, as a general rule, a man who takes well to bed rest. He instantly becomes a butterfly in a jar, fluttering and frustrated. He isn't opposed to sloth and idleness, mind, but he likes them at a moment of his choosing and in combination with the sort of worldly pleasures a sickbed rarely offers. More often than not, in times of illness, he makes things worse for himself with his impatience and refusal to be confined.

Today, however, he is a model patient. There are, after all, worse places to be suffering than in a bed. And he is still suffering, to be perfectly clear. The dramatic improvement of his circumstances aside, each inch of his body has taken it upon itself to impose its own steep fine for the trial he put them through, and the partial return of his clarity of mind has not improved the situation whatsoever.

A chill causes him to shiver and he groans aloud as the motion once again triggers a wave of dizziness and pain. "Oh, that's cheating," he says under his breath. "I'm being exceptionally well-behaved. Involuntary movement should not count towards my punishment."

He makes a mental note to write an ode to the underappreciated wonder that is absence of pain. Is there a word for that? Seems clumsy to say the whole thing. He'll think on it. When his mind is clearer. He isn't exactly in the best mindset for composition.

The morning hours pass and the entire room buzzes constantly with Geralt's discomfort as he busies himself with the Jaskier's care and the affairs of the day. Knowing him, it's likely some mixture of worry and guilt. And yet, despite his obvious inner turmoil, the witcher is tender and attentive.

Not that Geralt would admit any of that to himself. His insistence on seeing himself as an unfeeling brute was a mystery, one Jaskier had been unable to solve for many years, not with his unwavering presence nor his songs nor his regular acts of appreciation. Still, he remains hopeful that it will sink in eventually, and as such, Jaskier smiles at the callous beast as he heartlessly checks his temperature and ruthlessly feeds him broth. Such inhumanity.

Coccooned in Geralt's competent if uneasy safekeeping, Jaskier allows the part of his mind that isn't tethered with pain to gaze on his circumstances as a work of art. A better painter than he could do the scene up quite nicely in oils: the rugged yet apprehensive witcher tending to the fragile (and charmingly vulnerable and attractively pale) convalescent. It would bring a tear to a glass eye.

Geralt would probably question its accuracy.

"Something wrong?"

"Huh?" Jaskier reacts with all the mental agility of molasses, blinking as Geralt's words filter into his brain. With effort, he forces his eyes to focus on the witcher, who's frowning and standing like he might spring into action at any moment.

"What's wrong?" Geralt repeats himself more forcefully, moving to Jaskier's bedside.

The bard comes to the belated realization that he must have been staring at Geralt with who-knows-what expression on his face. "Nothing," he says, attempting a reassuring smile, then reconsiders. "Well, nothing new."

Geralt gives him an appraising look and checks his forehead again. He seems displeased with the results. Nerves flutter in Jaskier's chest, but Geralt makes no comment. He simply stands and brushes dust from his trousers. "I set traps this morning. I'm going to check them. When I come back, we'll deal with the leg."

The bard feels his smile falter, but he doesn't protest. "See you shortly, then." At his words, Geralt nods and heads out.

Jaskier closes his eyes as tears threaten. "Shit."

Geralt sits in the dust outside the lodge, a freshly snared rabbit laid out beside him and largely forgotten. He sets out two sticks: one thicker, one thinner. He arranges them so that they're parallel. At the end, he sets an oblong stone, grinding the end into the dirt so it stands upright.

He stretches out his leg beside the sticks and measures them against his shin. Deeming the length satisfactory, he traces his finger about two-thirds of way the down, towards the stone. Noting the location, he takes the thicker stick in his hands and snaps it, then sets it back down. He does the same to the other. Then he tips the stone over so that it's lying on its side.

Carefully, he rotates the broken ends of the sticks to the left, squinting as he adjusts the angle. Then he slowly brings them back into alignment. He resets and tries again, a bit quicker. After a few attempts, he can perform the motion smoothly and at speed.

His gaze lingers on his model. Abruptly, his knuckles go white as he grips the sticks. He tosses them aside with a sharp grunt and they clatter against rocks. He rests his forehead on his fists, teeth clenched.

He can move sticks around all he likes; setting a bone is another matter entirely. Hell, he can only even see one bone in Jaskier's lower leg, and he knows there's two. He could put them in back in the wrong place. He could tear the flesh and make another wound. There might even be too much swelling to move the bones at all, and he'd just be wrenching and digging with his thick, brutish fingers and hurting Jaskier even more.

But the alternative...

People die from amputations. They bleed out, or the wound rots and poisons their blood. If they live, they hobble about on peg legs or crutches. Only the very rich could afford false limbs of any quality, and even then, there was no guarantee they would be able to move anything like before. Jaskier made his living on foot. Losing the leg would be a disaster.

But then, with the fever, it could kill him if he didn't cut it off.

Or it could kill him if he did.

No, _it_ wouldn't kill him. _Geralt_ would.

_Geralt_ could kill Jaskier.

"Fuck," he mutters, pressing his knuckles into his closed eyes until he sees stars.

Jaskier breathes slowly, in and out, trying to control his mounting anxiety. Geralt's presence had cast a balmy glow on the situation that disappeared at his leaving. Now the only thoughts to occupy Jaskier's mind are bloody premonitions of the impending bone-setting and bloody memories of what has already come to pass. And through it all, the question repeats itself, the question his splintered mind had asked through the mouths of hallucinations:

_Why?_

He still doesn't know why he followed Geralt up the hill, why he called out his name, why he ran towards him as the witcher fought the griffin. And the ignorance is eating him alive.

Jaskier is a music maker, and therefore a meaning maker. People love flowers, so in his songs, flowers become love itself. Rain falls aimlessly from unknowing clouds, and his words transform it into a force of renewal. He weaves the suffering of the world into the cloth from which heroes are cut.

But he's turned the past days over in his head again, and again, and again. There was no _reason_. And without reason there's no meaning. So he's hurt, and Geralt's hurt, and there's no _point_ to this pain.

Jaskier has always been able to parse his heart. But he can find nothing to explain himself.

His trembling now has very little to do with the fever.

They'd lost some supplies about a week ago when Jaskier startled Roach as they made camp. In her surprise, she trampled some of their gear, and the vials of poppy extract that they kept for specifically for the human had been among the casualties. Geralt grinds his teeth thinking about how he'd snapped at Jaskier. Told him he'd better not complain next time he was injured and they had nothing to numb him. _Stupid._

As it stands, he does his best to scrape as much as he can from the near-empty vial he'd salvaged. He mixes it with an old bottle of strong spirits that the hunters likely made themselves. Jaskier may not be fully out when Geralt sets the bone, but at least his mind will be elsewhere. He hands it to him, avoiding his wide gaze and wan face.

"Should we wait?" Jaskier is staring into the cup of makeshift sedative, voice uncharacteristically timid.

"No." Geralt says, setting out soft cloths, a needle and thread, and a bowl of water. He must have everything to hand that he may need.

"It's only..." Jaskier bites his lip. "Well, your shoulder. That talon went clean through. You sure it will hold up to...?" He gestures vaguely with a shaking hand.

"Yes." Geralt lights the stove in case he needs to cauterize the injury.

Jaskier fidgets, and Geralt can hear his racing heart. "Right, yes, your healing and endurance and all that, but in case you-"

"Jaskier." His tone is not snappish or cruel, but it is firm. "Drink."

With a sniffle Geralt pretends not to hear, Jaskier downs the contents of the cup, swallowing with difficulty. "Ugh. If you quit witchering, don't become a barkeep." Geralt rolls his eyes.

The intoxication sets in rapidly; despite his boasting, the bard is a lightweight. It's about time for that to serve them well. His eyes are glazed and he doesn't respond when Geralt presses against a bruise. Even rubbing his knuckles along his sternum only produces a wince and a mumble. It will have to do. Just in case, he ties the bard's wrists and healthy ankle to the bedposts to keep him from thrashing.

Time to get to work.

When Geralt removes the bandages, the interior of the wound is still a healthy pink. But the swelling has spread, stretching the red skin until it's shiny and firm. That might make this more difficult.

Geralt sits on the foot of the bed and braces himself. With a firm grip above and below the injury, he pulls, gently turning the lower portion to realign it. Fresh blood begins to ooze, but the bone doesn't move. Geralt applies more force, then more again. The limb starts to turn.

Then a sudden jolt and a sound of tearing, and there's more blood. The bard groans and twitches.

"Fuck," Geralt mutters, pressing a towel against the injury. The alignment is closer now, but not perfect, and a bulge on the calf suggests that unseen bone hasn't followed. He pushes against it, but it refuses to move. Not from the outside, anyway.

He knows this is almost certainly a grave error, but in this moment, with bloodied hands that _sound_ still in his ears, he can think of no other solution. He plunges his right hand into the wound, searching for the other bone. He finds it, grasps its slippery surface, starts to turn-

-and then his fingertips slip and sink into liquefied flesh, and the bone tip is crumbling, and the clean wound is suddenly flooded with a new tide of foul pus and rot, and _fuck, there's more, no, fuck-_

-and it won't _move_ , and he can't fucking _see-_

With a snarl, he withdraws his dripping hands. Moving quickly, he rinses them in the bowl of warm water and pats them dry. He sets an iron on the stove and grabs one of the long strips of linen he'd set out for bandaging. He ties it firmly around Jaskier's calf, about a hand's width below the knee. He binds a wooden spoon on top of the knot, then turns it, tightening the tourniquet until he can hear the fabric straining.

He draws his steel sword. He lines up the strike.

The sword clatters bloodlessly to the floor.

Geralt stands with his head lowered, still but for his shaking hands.

_Coward. Stupid. Brute. Coward._

"Fuck." He screws his eyes shut and digs his nails into his palms.

_This is what you do._

He growls, low in his throat.

_You're a hand on a sword. You cut._

He shoves away their history and breathes until he can convince himself that this is another job.

He picks up the sword.

Once they're both monsters, it's easy.

One clean strike. Hot iron on the stump. Greased bandage. Tourniquet off.

Very easy.

He watches his terrible hands press against its pulse point. Watches it shake, woozy and moaning with pain. Watches a damp cloth clean sweat and sick from its face and chest. Hears his voice murmur something soothing, watches his hands disguise themselves with gentleness, press a cup of water against trembling lips. Watches his fingers trace a sign that nudges its mind to drowsiness.

And once certain that its heart is strong and its sleep is sound, he watches himself take the severed limb a short distance from the lodge and bury it.

Then he returns, kneels beside Roach, rests his head against her flank, and bites down on his knuckles until they bleed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Detailed content warning: This chapter contains a description of a below-the-knee amputation.
> 
> Chapter title is a lyrical excerpt from "Sonya Alone", a song from Dave Molloy's musical "Natash, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812".
> 
> All your feedback and support continues to be profoundly appreciated.
> 
> Edit: I realized I never said this, so just in case it's applicable to anyone reading - feel completely free to share this fic (though not repost please), remix it, make art/writing based on it (please not porn), record a podfic, whatever! Don't need to ask, just tag me or whatever when you're done so I can see it. :)


	12. When shadows cover the road I am following

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: A description of a panic attack and dissociation.

_Traveling with Jaskier was better than traveling alone. But it was not easier. Weeks like this made Geralt question if it was worth it._

_He and his brothers were told over and over again in training: you cannot predict, but you can prepare. They learned how to respond to a thousand variables, and then drilled those responses until they became reflexes. Geralt knows how to change the arc of his swing when fighting a taller opponent, which potions to take for hunting a venomous creature in a wet environment, how to adjust his footwork to protect an injured ankle. Every imaginable combination of circumstances a witcher might encounter has been beaten into instinct._

_But witchers don't make a habit of travelling with humans; Jaskier is an entirely different set of variables. And though Geralt has now learned to anticipate most of the bard's behaviours, he still needs to manage them. Mostly, he has to manage Jaskier's emotions._

_The food spoils and Jaskier sulks. The path is blocked and Jaskier whines. An alderman shortchanges them for a hunt and Jaskier seethes. A damn flower blooms by their camp and Jaskier rejoices, startling Roach and ruining their supplies. When Geralt should be foraging, or finding a detour, or negotiating payment, or keeping their supplies intact - when Geralt should be finding solutions - instead, half his attention is on predicting and handling Jaskier, who often resists his interventions. It is difficult and it is exhausting._

_So yes, Geralt has been snappish lately. Normally, the rewards of Jaskier's company outweigh the strain he puts on the witcher. But every interaction for at least the past week has been stained by the bad blood mounting between them. Sustaining the heat of their dispute has become another drain on his overtaxed stamina, but he'll be damned if he gives in._

_So now they're eating another unpleasant breakfast and waiting for the other to blink. Or, more accurately, Geralt is eating breakfast. Jaskier has barely touched his porridge. He isn't ill, is he? One damn thing after another. "Are you actually going to eat something, or are you going to stare at it until we break camp and then complain you're hungry?"_

_Jaskier doesn't respond immediately - he must be ill, shit - but then he smiles at Geralt. He speaks softly. "Just... lost in thought, that's all." He nods at the porridge. "It's good."_

_It's a typical response for Jaskier, but only when he's in a better mood. Is he hiding something? Trying to get something? Is he ill after all? Geralt tests him. "You can't have seconds."_

_Jaskier raises his hands in apparent surrender. "No no, I just... It's a nice breakfast. Thanks."_

_The raised hands, the smile, the compliment - Geralt recognizes how the bard asks for a truce. For all his chatter, the he's thankfully light on apologies. Geralt responds in kind, breaking Jaskier's gaze and offering a grunt in reply. "Hm."_

_And that's all it takes._

_Soon, camp is broken and they're journeying again, falling back into their peacetime rhythm. Within moments, Jaskier begins his usual patter anew. "So! Where are we off to today?"_

_"See that hill?" Geralt gestures with his head towards the rocky peak. “Griffin’s been bothering hunters. Got a nest up there.” Considering their recent bad luck, he expects a debate; Jaskier knows very well that a griffin is a serious foe. But the bard merely smiles and hums a bouncy little tune as they walk along._

_Geralt calls a halt about two-thirds of the way up the hill. He dismounts Roach, prepares his equipment, and turns to Jaskier. "Wait here."_

_"Are you sure?" Jaskier says, fidgeting. Ah. There's the debate. "I mean... Never hurts to have backup, right?"_

_Geralt raises an eyebrow. They both know a griffin would eat the bard alive. "I can handle this one."_

_Geralt can feel Jaskier's gaze lingering on him as he makes his way up the hill, so he calls over his shoulder to reassure him. "I'll be back soon. Don't go anywhere."_

_"Of course. I trust you."_

_Right._

_Time to hunt._

In the first hour, the fever creeps upwards. Geralt soaks cloths and lays them on Jaskier's brow.

In the second hour, Jaskier grows pale and clammy, and his heart races. Geralt sits beside him, holds his hand and speaks to him.

In the third hour, the fever peaks. Geralt lays cool cloths on Jaskier's chest and places drops of water on his tongue.

In the sixth hour, Jaskier's colour returns and his pulse settles and the fever descends.

It is the ninth hour after the mutilation when Geralt feels his own body again.

And through the rest of the hours, he waits, and he works. He keeps Jaskier clean and dry, tends to his blisters, feeds him. It's dull, mindless work, and it suits Geralt perfectly fine.

Jaskier works, too, in his hazy half-consciousness. He struggles against fever and pain and exhaustion. He cooperates with Geralt's care, and he eats and drinks whatever is given to him.

"He's improving," Geralt murmurs to Roach on the third day. He takes her for a walk-about twice a day. She needs the exercise and he needs to clear his head. It works well. "Out of sheer willpower, it seems."

Roach flicks a fly away with her ears. They pass a patch of disturbed ground, and he doesn't think about the foot buried underneath, about whether it's decayed or shrivelled up or stripped by insects. He doesn't.

"He'll wake soon. Probably." He's used the silent hours to prepare the conversation with Jaskier, running it through in his mind, considering every variable, scripting his responses. He's ready.

They've looped their way back around to the stable. Geralt settles the horse and brushes her coat. As he approaches the lodge, he catches a new scent from the open window.

The fever has broken.

He opens the door and stops dead as he's met with a tired smile and a shaky little wave. "Afternoon. I think."

Jaskier's awake. And Geralt's words die in his throat.

Jaskier almost laughs at the obvious fear in Geralt's eyes as he looks at him. But Geralt never looks fearful without cause, so he restrains himself. Instead, he offers him a comforting smile and pats the mattress beside him. Geralt approaches, but doesn't sit; he's balanced on the balls of his feet, as though a fight might break out at any moment.

"So... How have you been?" Jaskier prompts in a raspy little singsong tone, hoping a bit of humour might relax the witcher slightly.

"Fine." The response is quick and flat. Never mind then. "How do you feel?"

"Hungry," Jaskier answers instantly. "I really think all of my problems at this moment could be solved with a simple little eight course meal."

Geralt snorts. "As long as all eight of those courses are rabbit stew, I might be able to manage that."

"Geralt, you absolute wonder. I'll write songs about your cuisine."

"I think that might be in poor taste."

"Gods above, Geralt, was that a play on words? I thought I was recovering but I must be on death's doorstep for you to humour me so."

The rhythm of their exchange falters as Geralt drops his gaze. Jaskier feels a sick fluttering in his gut. Either he's somehow hit a nerve concerning the witcher's sense of humour, or something really is terribly wrong. "...Geralt?"

"How..." Geralt swallows, shakes his head like a stubborn ox. "How's the leg?"

"On fucking fire," Jaskier sighs. He can't pretend that his attempts to distract himself have overcome the burning pain. He squeezes his eyes shut. "But I suppose that's to be expected. You managed to set it?"

A pause. "No."

Jaskier opens his eyes as feels his heart sink. "Fuck..." Fear crawls up his throat as he realizes what that means. "Do... Do you have to try again?"

Geralt lowers his head, gazes fixedly at his clenched fingers. "No."

"No?" Confusion gives way to dread. He blinks at Geralt. "Oh no. No. No no no-" Jaskier pulls back the sheets with a shaking hand.

The late afternoon light catches the swirling motes of dust in the air, casts the whole scene in amber. The shadow of his right leg stretches into the empty space below his left knee.

It's just... gone.

But it isn't gone. He can still move his toes. Wiggle them, clench and unclench them, splay them. He can feel their every motion, the muscles and skin and bone, the texture of the sheets and the temperature of the air. He can look at the empty space and feel them there.

There's a portrait of him, hanging in a hall, somewhere far away. Whole, two legs, two feet. He wonders if it's still him.

_It never was. It was oil and pigment on canvas. But it was the idea of you._

The idea of him. Whose idea?

There was, at some point, a smaller Jaskier. Wispy hair, milk teeth, chubby hands. That isn't him anymore. That body is gone. When did he leave it, and where did he go?

Where is he now? He isn't in his body. He can't feel any of it. His hands hover in front of his face.

He's other-Jaskier and he's listening in on Jaskier's thoughts and looking at his piecemeal body and-

A thunderclap rolls through his head and the world spins. His hands reach out and hold, seeking something steady, and suddenly the whole world is his hands, wrapped around another hand, pressed against a chest with a heartbeat, and he remembers his heart and his lungs and he feels them, feels the burning of his blood, feels his head, his arms and legs-

-leg-

He sucks in a gasping breath as suddenly his body belongs to him again, sound and sensation rushing back. He's dizzy with sobbing and Geralt is speaking.

"Breathe with me. You feel my chest? You hear me? In. And out. Don't pass out, Jaskier, stay awake. In. And out. Like a singer."

Like a singer. He's a singer. He tries.

The next breath grates as he drags it down his throat, but it's slower, deeper.

"Good. Again."

Another choking breath, but in time with Geralt's.

"Keep going."

His chest is loosening, the grip on his throat slackening, and each breath comes easier than the last. He sags, his soul settling itself into his skin once again.

That tin cup is pressed into his hands. He downs the water and discovers it's cleared away a taste of bile he hadn't even been aware of. He drops the empty cup and it pings against the floorboards, impossibly loud.

Geralt sits perched on the edge of the bed and snakes an arm around Jaskier’s back, places his other hand on his chest. Jaskier makes a broken, ugly sound halfway between a sob and a groan.

“I’m here,” Geralt murmurs. “I’m here. You’re safe.”

“You’re here,” Jaskier echoes absently. His ears are ringing.

Geralt gently pats his chest. “You’re okay.”

“I’m...” Jaskier swallows. “I’m not, Geralt.”

At first, he thinks Geralt didn’t hear, or didn’t listen. But then the witcher speaks. Whispers. “I know.”

“I can’t...”

“I know.”

Fuck.

He had been prepared for tears, for shouting, for anger, for denial or shock. He hadn't anticipated the glassy-eyed panic, the struggle to breathe.

_Stupid. And you think you know him._

They sit in silence. The beam of sunlight playing on their faces slowly narrows and disappears. Jaskier's breathing evens and Geralt realizes the bard has somehow fallen asleep. Perhaps he's found some escape there.

Carefully, Geralt slides his arm out from behind Jaskier and stands up. He has work to do.

"Jaskier."

The voice wakes him, or at least pulls him out of whatever murky pond his consciousness has sunk into. He doesn't think he was exactly asleep, not really. But he's awake now. "Mmph. Wha'." He doesn't open his eyes.

"I'm going to pick you up."

He shrugs, but shifts so that Geralt can lift him more easily. As he's hefted into the witcher's arms, Jaskier realizes he's entirely lost track of how long he's spent in that bed. He feels grimy and feeble.

Geralt carries him outside, not bothering to fetch him anything to wear. It makes sense. Jaskier can't imagine trying to dress given the state he's in, and it isn't as though anyone will see them out here.

"Where are you taking me?" Ordinarily, if Geralt lifts him at all, it's to attend to his care, not to take a promenade.

Geralt nods at something on the ground. "Look."

Jaskier turns his head ever so gently, and sees a blanket spread out on the dust-

-with eight little bowls of stew lined up in a row.

A giggle tickles Jaskier's throat, and as Geralt sets him down, he begins to laugh in earnest, a sound both full and fragile and just a touch frantic. Tears threaten and Geralt places a warm bowl in his hands. When his heart begins to race, Geralt squeezes his arms. And when his breath hitches and muscles shake, Geralt directs his gaze to the dazzling sky and the shooting stars that streak across it.

And when he falls asleep, Geralt tucks him back into bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still alive, and I'm still working on this fic! Hopefully there will be a bit more actual plot in the next installment, I'm having a hell of a time wrangling the next section of dialogue. Wish me luck!  
> Chapter title is a lyrical excerpt of "You Walk With Me", from the musical "The Full Monty" by Terrence McNally and David Yazbek.


	13. Interlude

_Geralt sits cross-legged on the hillside. Jaskier lays beside him, pointing up at the field of stars overhead. "Most people can pick out the Spear, but the rest of the Warrior is just to the left. See his arm? And of course, there's the Three Birds. They're just above the horizon this time of year." He pauses and the silence between them breathes for a long moment. "How much farther is it to the city?"_

_Geralt extends his arm and levels his fingers along the horizon. "Another week. If the weather holds."_

_Jaskier notes Geralt's point of reckoning. "Ah, the Crown Star. Old reliable."_

_"The Serpent's Eye," Geralt corrects him._

_Jaskier cocks an eyebrow. "No, the Serpent's Eye is to the east of us."_

_Shaking his head, Geralt points to a bright star in the south. "Eye." He slides his finger along a row of smaller points of light. Tail."_

_Jaskier sits up and takes Geralts hand. He moves it to point at an eastward star, traces the constellation as he speaks. "Eye. Tail. And open jaw." He releases his grip and gestures to Geralt's reckoning star. "Your star is the central jewel of the diadem. See?" He outlines the shape of the celestial crown._

_"Hm."_

_Jaskier cocks his head. His smile is tired. "You know, it wouldn't kill you to say I'm right."_

_"The name doesn't matter." Geralt shrugs. "It's the right star for navigation."_

_"Oh, you're just jealous that I know more about stars than you do." Jaskier waves a dismissive hand._

_Geralt shifts, frowns at Jaskier. "Knowing the names and the constellations doesn't tell you anything about the stars." He looks down. "It's just what people say about them."_

_"The myth is the meaning!"_

_"Myth is myth." Geralt's tone is firm._

_Jaskier scoffs. "And what do you know about stars anyway, hmm?"_

_"What's real. How to navigate by them."_

_"Ah ah ah," Jaskier tuts, wagging a finger. "That's just what people use them for." He nudges Geralt with an elbow. "See? We're not so different."_

_Jaskier lays back on the dewy grass. It's a long moment before he speaks again. "Look at us. Hm?" He stretches out and sighs. "Just a couple of twits, looking at the stars, spouting nonsense. Could argue about them until the sky falls and we still wouldn't know a damn thing. Ah well." He smiles up at Geralt. "Doesn't mean we can't enjoy the view." His expression turns wistful. "Think they're looking back at us?"_

_Geralt raises an eyebrow with a soft snort. "There's got to be some patch of earth out there that's easier on the eyes."_

_Jaskier gasps in mock horror. "Speak for yourself, I'm a magnum opus. Honestly, the fact that I'm even clothed right now is a crime, I'm depriving them of a true masterpiece of the human form."  
_

_Geralt's reply drifts among the cricket song, somewhere far, far beneath the sky._

_Quite some time later, they return to sleep in their little hilltop camp among the trees, out of view of the stars._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... it's been a while. Life happened. All is well though! Been having a bit of trouble getting the writing gears turning again, so I wanted to get something short written and posted. This was intended to open the next chapter. I hope you are all hanging in there. If you've stuck with this fic, thank you and welcome back! If you're new, thank you and welcome!


	14. You've always known

The world is sick. Sallow light filters from the curdled clouds, and leaves shiver in the breeze despite the thick, fever-hot air. It will rain soon, probably before the afternoon.

Jaskier fidgets with his blankets, trying to quell his worry. "Geralt will be back soon," he says aloud to the empty room. "He's just taking Roach out for a slightly longer walk. They aren't made of sugar, they won't melt in the rain."

Not made of sugar, indeed. Whatever sudden paroxysm of warmheartedness prompted the picnic earlier this week, it has seemingly evaporated. Oh, Geralt remains gentle in his care of Jaskier, who is very much still bedridden. But there's a tension in his movements, a... a pulling away. None of Jaskier's usual conversational tricks have been able to wheedle any information out of the witcher concerning his mindset. And now this unusually long walk?

He strains his ears, trying to pick out the telltale sounds of hoofbeats. There's wind, rustling leaves...

Ah. There it is. Geralt's voice. It sounds distant, perhaps carried to him on the breeze. He sighs, letting his muscles relax. Geralt is fine. He's chatting with Roach, as he's wont to do when he thinks Jaskier is out of earshot.

Jaskier is about to direct his attention elsewhere, when a new sound catches his ear.

A new _voice_.

They haven't seen another living soul in the valley the entire time they've been here. His heart beats faster as he tries to deduce who it might be. This wouldn't be profitable stomping grounds for bandits, and it's rather out of the way for travelers.

_Maybe you're hallucinating again._

Jaskier stiffens. He forces himself to take a deep, slow breath. He'd _thought_ those words. He hadn't heard them.

Had he?

Gods, he wishes Geralt would hurry back.

He must have been lost in thought longer than he realized, because he's startled by the sudden opening of the hunting lodge door. Geralt enters, shoulders hunched, and makes his way to the workbench. He doesn't greet Jaskier. He simply stands, his back to the bard.

Jaskier swallows. "You were talking to someone?"

"The hunters."

It's such an obvious answer that Jaskier would curse his own foolishness if it weren't for Geralt's tone, low and flat and bloody at the edges. After all these years, Jaskier can recognize when Geralt is suppressing rage. Jaskier feels his guts churn. "They want us to leave their lodge, don't they?" Shit, he couldn't walk, let alone make the three day journey to the next town, even on horseback. Geralt hadn't hurt the hunters on Jaskier's account, had he?

Geralt exhales slowly through his nose. He doesn't speak for a long moment. "We've come to an arrangement."

Jaskier raises an eyebrow. The silence yawns. "You... don't sound pleased," he prompts.

Geralt straightens, fists clenched. When he speaks, the words sound stilted, rehearsed. "We have the lodge for another week. Long enough for you to recover from the worst of it."

"Geralt, you flatter me with your confidence, but I won't be able to travel in a week." There's a coolness in Jaskier's tone that belies the acceleration of his heart. Something is wrong.

"I know."

"Then what do you-?" Jaskier breaks off, realization hitting him like a sniper's arrow to the chest. His next words tremble on his breath. "You... You're leaving me here."

"I head out when the week is up. The hunters will care for you until you're well enough to leave." No eye contact. Geralt stares straight ahead like a soldier at attention. Like Jaskier isn't there.

"How generous of them." The words are brittle, but Jaskier doesn't notice over the rushing in his ears.

Geralt shifts on his feet. "It's my payment. Your care instead of coin." His jaw tenses. "No debts."

The world tips and shudders in time with Jaskier's heartbeat. "No... debts?"

"I'm paid. I repay you."

When the bard finally speaks, the words are low and bladed. "If you're going to spew rot, at least have the courage to look me in the fucking eye when you do it." Geralt meets his gaze then, eyes flashing and widening in surprise. "You heard me, witcher. Debts? Our arrangement has never been about-"

"Our _arrangement_?" Geralt's voice is a growl. "What the fuck do you think our arrangement is, exactly?"

"It's _us_ , Geralt!" Jaskier's tone borders on shouting. "It's _being_ us. Ourselves! Together."

Suddenly, Geralt's face is a hair's breadth from Jaskier's. "And who do you think I am? The man from your songs?" He wrinkles his nose and leans back. "You don't know me, bard."

Jaskier shakes his head, ignoring the throbbing and dizziness that blooms in his skull. "You don't believe that."

"If you knew me, you wouldn't have-" Geralt cuts off with a rough swallow.

Jaskier gives an incredulous laugh. "What? Saved your life?" He throws his hands in the air. "Yes, let's go through this one again, shall we? Is it the usual 'I'm-a-terrible-monster' fare, or have we graduated to a new form of self-loathing?"

"I never asked for a martyr," Geralt snaps. "I don't want a martyr!"

"I wasn't dying for you!" His voice frays at the edges. The justification tastes like the dust of the canyon on his lips. The world is spinning.

"What then? Getting fodder for another song? Are you that fucking senseless?"

"You know that isn't-"

"No, Jaskier, I don't." Geralt slams a fist down on the workbench, rattling the tools. "I don't know why the fuck you do anything. And that makes you a threat. So you need to give me a damn reason right now."

"It was going to kill you!" Jaskier tastes blood as he shouts. The pressure in his skull is unbearable.

"So you were trying to stop it? An unarmed bard?"

"No, I-" He presses his palms against his eyes. "Gods, Geralt, what was I supposed to do?" His throat is tightening, and he sucks in quick, shallow breaths.

"Nothing!"

_Make it stop_. _Make it stop._ "You were about to _die_ , I couldn't just- I couldn't-"

_He paces back and forth, his fingers fretting the strings of his lute. He tries to tell himself that he doesn't know what's going on, that all could be going perfectly well, that any moment now Geralt would saunter down the hill with a trophy in hand. But Jaskier trusts his gut above all else. Over and over, drowning out his rational reassurances, the thought plays through his mind: I should be there. I should be there._

_Geralt told him to stay, but Geralt says a lot of foolish things. Things like, "I can handle this one." And so he goes._

_The battle is audible long before he crests the hill, and his heart stutters; a fight he can hear is one that's gotten out of control, one that Geralt couldn't end as it began. He picks up his pace and before long he's sprinting, catching himself on scraped and scrabbling palms as his feet slide on loose stones but he never stops, never slows. He can't. He knows there are mere moments before it's over, one way or another. As he reaches the top of the hill, he doesn't want to look, and still he looks. Geralt, and with him the griffon, and the blood soaking the parched earth, and the glint of Geralt's sword far from his hand. Geralt is pinned and disarmed, and the griffon raises its talons to strike._

_It's over._

_He doesn't mean to yell Geralt's name. But he does mean to run, and not back the way he came, but onward. The griffon turns its head to look, and maybe it will slice him open or crush him or toss him from the ledge, and maybe it won't, but Geralt-_

_He has to be there when-_

_He couldn't-_

"I couldn't let you die alone!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the answer.  
> Chapter title is an excerpt from "Learn to Be Lonely", from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera".


End file.
